Digital Photography Review, the Universe's biggest camera review site and online photographer community, just announced that they are closing shop on the 10th of April. Sad News. (DP Review).

 My discovery of DP Review happened back around the turn of the century when there were far, far fewer equipment review sites and the ones that were out there were variable in quality. I think it was a guy named Phil Askey that started the whole thing back in 1999. But his reviews were just great and he really was running a one man show, more or less. 

The site was based in London and the writing was always great back then. And the understanding of photography (as opposed to mumbly faux physics of recent times) was deep and both technically and aesthetically well grounded. Professionals turning from film to digital depended on the site to parse out the best new digital camera gear and to learn best practices. It was the anchor for camera knowledge in the early years of digital adaptation.

Amazon bought the site in 2007, moved DPR's HQ to Seattle and watched it grow during the lead up to the peak year of digital embrace (and sales) back in 2010 or, depending on how you measure, 2011. After that sales of interchangeable lens cameras and their lenses dropped in quantity year by year. But as the reviews declined a bit in quality and scope (compared to Phil's stuff) the enthusiasm for the site's ability to build community (forums) and become a home for various rants and hot user competitions/debates between brands of cameras grew unchecked. As did eyeballs on the content. 

Even in current times I'll go and read a camera review of some model that's interesting to me. And being both the biggest photo gear oriented site on the web and the one connected at the hip to the world's biggest online retailer (Amazon: which, of course, sold cameras, lenses, accessories, etc.) the editorial staff of DPR got the first crack at the latest test gear, the latest beta gear and the latest gear, gear. So, readers got a heads up about new cameras as soon as humanly possible. Barring NDAs. What a privileged position to be in.

While I was put off by the endless bad information in the fora, and the rage that ensued and continued almost endlessly, I did find the industry press releases they published and the camera tests the new crew tried to put out still readable and sometimes informative. They lost me for a while with all the sturm und drang over "equivalence" but after a guy named Rishi left all that died down and became floor fluff. Background noise. Rant fuel.

While I will miss the site I think the effect on the world of photography will be much more profound. Think of this: Millions and millions of viewers every month came to the site to learn about new cameras, new lenses and new accessories. Most of these products were introduced via editorials which meant that the manufacturers were getting direct access to the world's biggest market for upscale cameras at no cost to them. Well, other than sending along some cheap swag and some review cameras. Even the camera reviews (unpaid by camera makers) were amazing free marketing for the camera industry in general.  By closing the site Amazon will be removing from Nikon, Sony, Canon and even Leica millions and millions of direct connections to potential (and proven) buyers of their goods. I predict that without DPRs crew priming the pumps and waving the flags of "new innovations" we'll see a noticeable-to-huge decline in camera and lens sales world wide. And none of the camera makers will want to step up their advertising placement budgets by millions and millions of dollars to replace the lost (free and global) reach. They've been attached to the free nipple of promotion for so long they may not even know how to effectively generate demand through other media. 

The ripple effects will be endless. Without DP Reviews reviews of new top-of-the-line cameras and the implied approval provided by those reviews people who still hear about the new gear might be more hesitant to buy. It's different buying an item that's largely unvetted versus buying a product that's been vouched for by a long running and mostly respected review site. No one wants to be bit from being and early adopter.

As camera makers' reach dangerously erodes so too will sales at local and regional merchants who also depend on DPR to trumpet new product arrivals. Many of these smaller stores exist precariously as it is. This may be the event that pushes many of them into insolvency...

And if my blog were a source of income I'd be leaping into action to come up with something to replace affiliate profit sharing because a decline in (free) world wide advertising and product awareness will definitely bring down sales and by extension affiliate cash, which represents a big part of site revenues. 

You may say that this will be temporary, just a bump in the road. And if sales had been hopping along well for the industry for the past ten years I might optimistically agree but you have to understand that the overall market for cameras (not phones...) has been in a yearly free fall since about 2013. Ten years of annually declining sales already. 

What was (is?) your experience with DPR? What do you think their closing will cause? Have I missed some mitigating facet that might actually benefit the industry? 

The funny thing is that this might just bolster the commercial market for actual photography. I'll have to think on that a while before I write more. 

Just thought I'd let you guys know.

First black and white film scan with the new copy stand.

 I set up a little semi-permanent copy stand/film copier set up in one corner of the office. I'm starting to "scan" medium format, black and white film from the past.This image is my first try. It's a photo I took with a 6x6 cm camera onto Tri-X film many, many years ago. The subject is "Lou" and the location is the gardens at Laguna Gloria Museum. 

The whole set up is quite simple. I bought a small but well made copy stand, attached a Sigma fp camera fitted out with a Sigma 70mm f2.8 macro lens (Art Series). The lens was set at f5.6 and I let the camera select the shutter speed via A priority. Then I used the exposure compensation control to get the tones I wanted. Set the camera to shoot DNG files and to have a 2 second self-timer. 

When I brought the file into Photoshop I merely clicked on "invert" in the adjustments menu and I was presented with a flat but pretty well detailed image file. I opened levels and used the black eyedropper tool to sample the space between frames (which should print black if you were doing this in a conventional dark room) and then adjusted the highlight and mid-tones to taste. 

Because it's film I did have to spot out a few dust spots with the little "band-aide" icon. I sharpened the parts of the frame that I thought needed it, letting the photo spirits guide me. And then, with the click of a button, the photograph appeared on my desktop. Time elapsed? About five minutes. I think it's not bad for a first try. Might need to find a sharper negative though. I think I just missed getting the focus on her face...

Sobering epiphany strikes Kirk while undertaking new duties.

In most partnerships there is a division of labor that should play to each person's strengths. I tend to be a "big picture" guy. I like the sweep of big ideas and get bogged down by details and responsibilities for things that aren't fun. Fortunately I married someone who is both patient and disciplined, and relentless about working with details. She has, for the last several decades, put together all of the numerical evidence required for our CPA to prepare and submit our federal income taxes. And she's done a stellar job.

I try as well as I can to keep invoices logical and tidy and deposit them into a folder in drawer #2 with as much regularity as I can muster. I save invoices when boxes full of juicy lenses arrive in the studio. The lenses go in one drawer and the invoices go into a specific filing cabinet drawer and into a folder. I try not to forget writing down who and for what I've written checks. I dutifully print out my monthly credit card statements and make notations where appropriate. But there are gaps. And there's so much paper. And everyone's attempts to make me use Quickbooks Pro have failed miserably because I'd rather be outside with a camera than inside with a stack of paper, entering column after column of what seems to me to be nothing more than rationalizations about how I've spent money. 

But our usual arrangement did not work out this year. B has had to spend the last month+ out of town, taking care of her mom who had a fall and cracked a bone. Since she has her priorities straight all the work on the taxes was relegated either to me or to limbo and if I didn't step up I would be the one paying interest and penalties as a result.

So, about a week and half ago I started rounding up all the needed information. Our accountant sent me a template based on what B delivered to him last year. He suggested that I follow that guidance when looking through all of 2022's records. I concurred and got busy. I had to download statements from four different banks, from brokerage firms, from credit card companies and others. I had to assemble the invoices and expenditures from my business. Lost invoices had to be replicated and inserted. Mileage logs rescued from the abyss of the center console of my studio car. And, I had to do the same for B's half of the family "fortune." (very loose usage....)

What I discovered in this solitary and sordid ordeal was sobering. I spent a fortune on coffee last year. I guess I was so thrilled to be out and about after all the lockdowns that I made meeting up for coffee the newest symbol of freedom. I also spent way too much on wine. Not too much wine, just too good wine. I guess I momentarily felt rich but I seem to have adopted the mantra that if I was going to be a sensible (meaning not to excess in terms of quantity) wine drinker and vaguely temperate I might as well reach for the $30 and $40 dollar bottles instead of the grocery store staples from the mega-wine industry. And I found that this can get expensive quickly.

But the real culprit in sucking my checking account drier than the Colorado River in 2022 seems to have been my unhesitant embrace of buying any and all of the lenses and photo accessories imaginable. From reflectors to flashes to LED lights to hard drives, and lens, lens, lens, they all seemed fair game. I'm sure this is the way I have been living in the photography business for some time but this is the first time I've been viscerally presented with my profligate spending because it's the first time in a long time I had to sit down and painfully sift through the numbers by myself. Tallying one's own excesses is a twinge-y sort of pain. 

I was also informed by the CPA about a whole bushel basket of things I would not be allowed to deduct from the tax bill, such as my masters swim monthly dues or all those cool shoes I bought from REI along with the cool pants and the even cooler shirts. Solo runs to the bakery for coffee and pastries were also off the list. As was our weekly pizza from Baldinucci. And I found out that there are limits to what you can deduct for charitable giving so, of course I'll never donate to another charity again... (kidding, kidding). 

It was quite a blow to find that I can't "write off" the time I spend writing this blog. Or the time I spend walking around downtown taking photographs! Which, now that I know it's all fruitless, I'll never do again. 

There are things I can deduct, such as that luscious Leica Q2 that accidentally fell into my shopping cart toward the end of 2022 but now I find that I have to pay for them first. Well, I guess that wasn't an earth shattering revelation....

I sent along all those droll 1099s and W-somethings along with the results of all my  categorizations and lists to the CPA last night. They'll tabulate the results of my accounting grunt work and combine that with the constraints of the tax laws to come to some sort of end product. And then everyone will send me a bill. I'll have to once again pony up for the cost of running the federal government but also pay the bill from the CPA for keeping me out of jail and maintaining my position as a productive member of society. 

Many, many years ago, when I wrote my first book, I labored under the misguided delusion that a publisher's deadline was a real thing. I'd always wanted to write a book and have it published so I was determined to play by the publisher's rules and get them the manuscript and the 158 photographs right on time. Even if it meant working en charrette. On the very last day before the proposed deadline I was manically working to get everything ready for the evening run to the Federal Express office to get the package shipped. 

I felt pangs of panic and a general sense of life threatening "something". I started to tingle all over. My peripheral vision started to close in. I was hyperventilating. There were bright "floaters" in my vision. I was certain I was experiencing the symptoms that indicated that I was having a stroke. 

In a panic I called into the house to B and begged her to drive me to the hospital about a mile away. My nervous trembles growing worse as we navigated through late afternoon traffic. 

When I got there I breathlessly told the attending physician, and a bored bevy of nurses and other staff, about my symptoms. They did a few tests before deciding whether or not they would admit me. I seem to have passed the tests and they soon diagnosed acute panic attack/anxiety. It was suggested that I take a Xanax and calm the fuck down. Fifteen minutes later my imminent stroke symptoms completely resolved and a sense of relief washed over me. I also dodged a $1500 to $2000 emergency room charge which helped my attitude quite a bit.

B helped me get the final package together and to the Fedex. I'd made it. Right under the "very critical" deadline. 

It was radio silence from the publisher for several weeks and I finally got up the courage to call and ask them what they thought. To assuage or confirm my fear that the whole project was crap, and worse, unpublishable crap. The publishers were cavalier. They said, "Yes. It's here in the pile. We'll get to it soon." 

I asked them why they told me to have everything in by the deadline if they had no intention of getting to it with dispatch. They countered that of the 100 or so people each year who accept a contract from them to write a book, and who accept advance money to do so, only about 10 are actually able to follow through. The rest give up and return the advance. So, one out of ten people who have the opportunity to write a book actually follow through. Amazing because this is a small percentage of people who have shown a proclivity for writing, some sort of writing track record, and desire to do a book project. 

I mentioned this to my CPA and he quickly said that the IRS is not like my publisher. They are serious about their deadlines and there are consequences for missing them. Consequences that would cost me time and money. 

So yesterday, as I was racing through endless columns of numbers and trying to track everything down for the taxes I started to have the same symptoms I'd evinced back in 2007 at the near completion of book #1. This time I figured out exactly what the issue was, took a small dose of an anti-anxiety potion and laid down on the couch for a few minutes. The panic passed. I finished in more than enough time and walked away with a renewed appreciation for the power of that division of labor and the comfort of having someone else to do the heavy lifting. 

Now to wait sullenly for the tally and the emptying of my checking account by the 15th of April. Like the god Janus, success has two faces. One makes you feel like you can do almost anything while the other reminds you that it all comes at a cost. 

After seeing the huge amount of money I appear to waste over the course of a year I've resolved to be a bit more parsimonious. Maybe make more coffee at home. Maybe drink cheaper wine or none at all. And maybe to take a pass on that next miracle camera from Leica. Either all that or I need to find a quick way to double my income. Yikes. 

 

Business note. First gear purchase of 2023. Utilitarian. But helpful.

 

My photographer friend, Paul, is always scouting around on the internet looking for photographic bargains. A few weeks ago we were having coffee and discussing the future of photography. I told him that I'd love to just start shooting more and more for myself and that I'd probably get rid of everything but the Leicas and, even in that space, I'd only want to keep the ones that all use the same type of battery. Those would be the SL, the SL2 and the Q2. I did mention that I'd love a few more batteries but that I find them to be dreadfully expensive...

So, over the weekend I got a call from him and he told me he'd located and purchased two slightly used Leica BPSCL4 batteries. He bought them from someone who dived into the Leica SL system and then lunged right back out again. All the guy had left to sell were two almost brand new batteries for his now departed camera.

Price check on aisle five! The current new price for these batteries in the USA is right around $285 each. Two would run $570. 

The two batteries Paul got were priced at $320 for the pair. I asked him if he was interested in selling both or if he was interested in keeping one of them to use with his own SL. He told me he already had a couple backups and offered them to me; if I wanted them. Which, of course, I did. 

The original seller was someone Paul had done business with before and trusted. Trust but verify says I. I put them onto Nitecore chargers that both charge and read out the condition of the batteries. Both are as advertised. Pretty much as brand new. 

Feeling good about getting more batteries! Feeling even better about saving $250 into the bargain. 

Why more batteries? Because I hate having to charge batteries in a hotel room every night while traveling. Especially batteries that take three or four hours to fully charge up from zilch. I figure I need three batteries per camera on a long, extended shooting day. That's 3X battery baby-sitting each night. More fun just to have enough batteries to go for days without the hassle. 

Also, when it comes to video projects the SL2 performs best when it's got fresh batteries. I like to keep feeding it fresh batteries if I'm using it on a 4K adventure. Nice if you can swing it but more battery intensive than it should be...

Sadly, if you look at the overall configuration of the battery dress and the electrical specs you could be forgiven for thinking this is a repackaged Panasonic S battery with a weather seal and a fancy interlock. And you can pick up Panasonic batteries all day long for about $65. But if you are spending money on Leica gear it's a bit churlish to whine about the price of accessories. 

Happy day. New batteries. Unlocking more potential uninterrupted shooting time for me. Sorry, no links.

My point of view about photography is bound to be different from yours if....

...you don't send out invoices along with your photographs...

When I started this blog I think I made it incredibly clear that it was intended to be about my life as a commercial photographer. A person who spends 100% of their work time engaged in making, selling or marketing photographs for commercial/business use. The one exception, which has died off almost completely, was the work I also did for editorial outlets which were almost exclusively magazines. 

If I bought a piece of gear it was generally because I thought the new acquisition would help me make better images which would, down the road, help me get better clients and even better projects. If I posted an image as an example of some blog topic (about the business) it was not because I thought the image was "great art" but because it demonstrated something about the trend or technique covered in a particular blog post. 

This weekend Michael Johnston posted a great comment (made into a post) from a reader credited as JH. I recommend it for everyone on both sides of the "I do this for fun/hobby" and "I do this for a living" divide because it explains so much to me about the feedback I sometimes get here that baffles or torments me. Here's the link. 

But back to today's screed.

A constant theme from photographers who aren't engaged in the business of making photos for clients is that "Kirk changes camera systems more often than XXX changes his underwear...." The idea that JH puts forward; that some of us are not process driven but are instead project driven comes into play. Readers who have the benefit of working a subject to death seem happy to use the same gear ad infinitum because the gear is actually part of their long term process and changing gear would change the process and that's disruptive.

On the other hand I see shorter, faster engagements as projects. I tie cameras and camera systems to projects. If similar projects come up I use the same gear. If projects diverge and something new presents itself on the horizon I try to find the gear that works best for the new project. While for a hobbyist an expensive camera purchase is a sunk cost that has no financial return and is doomed only to depreciate, a small business can depreciate or deduct a new camera purchase from the company's profits in the schedule C, make money with the camera in the moment, and then trade the camera off or sell it when the need (or desire) for it fades. It's not a black and white, all or nothing equation. 

Were I to get a string of assignments photographing serious portraits for a prosperous company, over time, I might be able to justify the buying of a medium format camera and appropriate lenses because they might give me just exactly the look I want. Or they might provide the placebo effect of knowing I was bringing the most serious gear to the project. But after the glow of the project dimmed and my horror at repeating myself re-emerged I might get tangled up with another project that called for a documentary black and white style of photographing that required different gear. But always the gear is tied to projects. 

I read with some amazement when someone writes that they've been using the same camera and lens since 2007 or 1995. I can't imagine that for myself. I'm equally at odds with the idea that someone who is incredibly serious about photography might have only the one camera and no back up camera. But that's the bleed over from my perspective as a working photographer. If today's shooting camera gets caught in a wood chipper (and the strap doesn't pull me in as well...) I still need to finish today's job and be ready for tomorrow's job. And that means having more than one camera --- there somewhat as a safety blanket; just in case, but also as a rational redundancy, like the fact that passenger jets all have at least two engines....

There are some comments at which I just laugh out loud and then move on from. My least favorite is when I describe a financial arrangement and a well meaning person with absolutely no photo business sense suggests: "Just charge them double!!!" or "If the demand XXX you should demand XXXX!!!" as though the client has no say in the matter and no recourse other than to choose me and keep me in business. In nearly every business (with the exception of monopolies) all projects and encounters are based on compromise and negotiation. The idea that I can charge $10,000 for a headshot instead of $800 because the client inconvenienced me is just unimaginable.

I have too thin a skin but I always get ruffled when someone looks at a photo I've posted as an example on the blog and then proceeds to critique said photo as if I had contended that it was the finest manifestation of fine art photography and deserved to be in a museum. Nearly always the photos are only intended to accompany a talking point. Or the images are added to a post as a bit of a visual resting spot to an otherwise droll and poorly thought through essay. But I never intend for an image that is compressed and rendered at 3200 pixels to be thought of as an example of high art. Same for subject matter. 

One thing I have to mention is that many photographers who comment here seem to have long term projects they are working on. I wish. I have a vague understanding that I should concentrate more and more on the portraits I like and should figure out something to do with them but I must be the least disciplined worker of all when it comes to making anything into a long term project. I bounce in and out of a number of genres because photography weaves through my everyday life and isn't set aside as a "special treat" or something I carve out of the time I have to spend working at a "real" job or the time I "must" spend on endless family vacations, family gatherings, family obligations (yes, married couples should spend at least one vacation a year away from each other --- solitude can be wonderful). No. I bring a camera with me everywhere and I'm unfiltered about photographing just about everything. From a beautiful face to a smiling lawyer to a well lit (natural light) cup of coffee. If I concentrated on only one kind of photography I'm pretty sure I could make a more successful go of it than I have. But I'm equally sure I'd be bored to tears. 

Many people also have a huge reverence for all the photo work that was done in the past. Like large format landscape stuff from the last century. Like street photography from the 1970's, 1980's and onward. While I too find Robert Frank's work and William Klein's work and Richard Avedon's work the foundation for nearly everything I like to look at now it's not my job to halt all my own forward progress is a misguided worship of the work they did 50 or 70 years ago. It's like being a political scientist and only studying the Eisenhower administration --- over and over again. Or claiming that the 13 inch black and white TV from GE, circa 1965, is the highest achievement of electrical engineering aimed at television.

We can give an appreciative nod to those giants who came before us but it's absolute folly to let our admiration for their pioneering paralyze us in the present. 

While this flies in the face of popular discussion there is more to a life in photography than just the finished work. The prints. The digital files. To my mind the whole engagement with photography has to be fun, challenging, raucous and social. The work of the work is the process I bond with instead of the process of doing the work. By that I mean the overarching universe of living photographically is much more valuable to me than clamping my bulldog teeth on to one subject/project and working it to death, over and over again like an indestructible bone. 

For whatever reason I'm perceiving that photography as I've practiced it, as a business, for so long is slowly vanishing. So are the needs of the clients for what I do. So are the engagements and the flow of money. One would think that this is where panic should set in. Or bitterness at the changing nature and the changing fortunes of photography as a business for the baby boomer generation. I'm sorry. I don't feel like whining. If we did our careers correctly it's too late at 67 years old to depend on the next headshot to pay the bills. Planning should have started happening with these days in mind decades ago. Now I guess it's really time to worry less about the next work project and start having more fun shooting stochastically. Chaotically. Or with just a sense of exuberance. But that's what we should be doing because as much as we might enjoy having structure I've always found that it was the stepping away from structure that made all of this so much fun.

not fine art.

not fine art.

not fine art.

not fine art.

 

You can probably tell I'm really shy and introverted but I'm trying really hard to work out my quiet and retiring nature by throwing myself into photo situations that require a tiny bit of give and take.

I had some time. I gave myself an official break from assembling the accounting information for my CPA and I went downtown with a little camera and lens just to see if I could still move through crowds, make new friends and get over my shyness. (I am kidding, I'm no more shy or retiring that anyone else.... maybe less so...). 

After hauling around bigger cameras earlier in the week I gave myself permission to use one of the wondrous and adorable Leica CL cameras along with an equally winsome Sigma i-Series 56mm f1.4 lens. I didn't walk endlessly. I just planted myself on a few hopping blocks of East Sixth St. and watched the people go by. There were lots of bands that were not part of the official SXSW roster but who had come to SXSW to do impromptu showcases out in the streets or to give the public a taste and then pass out promo cards for later performances at big and little clubs sprinkled all over the downtown area; spilling over to the east side. The bands down here on Friday afternoon were predominantly composed of African American musicians and performers. The energy was high. And finally the street was filled with people filming for social media...with real cameras. 

I made myself right at home. As a 67 year old guy with white hair I guess I must have stood out from the crowd, all of whom were younger and more appropriately dressed for the event. I must have looked like I just walked out of a geriatric REI catalog. But I really didn't care. If I saw someone whose look I liked I just smiled and walked up and talked to them about making their photo. Everyone was game. Well, I did ask one person who was doing a food concession and didn't want to be photographed, but everyone else was up for it. 

I shot four or five hundred frames with the camera set to DNG+Large Jpeg and when the battery in the camera expired I was torn between calling it quits or pulling another battery out of my pocket and going onward. In the end I decided I'd better call it quits. I had a dinner invitation to a famous photographer's house and I remember that both he and his wife are incredible cooks. I dropped by Trader Joes for a bottle of wine and headed over for an amazing St. Patrick's Day dinner. A nice way to end a day of wandering around aimlessly in crowds and trying to figure it all out. 

I did feel less shy and retiring as I walked back to the car......

I'm showing some frames in color and in black and white just so I can look at the differences and decide how I really like them. Don't tell me which way to go. I'll change my mind tomorrow.

 

How to finish projects. One person's guide to getting something, anything done. Even the stuff you don't like to do.

The disconnection between an online portfolio and the amazing detail and resolution of contemporary cameras and lenses.

If you are a photographer who came to photography in the film days or the early days of digital cameras your intention on most jobs was to deliver high resolution, high dynamic range files. Since my career started around 1980 I came into this profession expected to deliver images from 4x5 inch cameras and medium format (real medium format = 6x6 cm and larger....) cameras that could easily be used across a "double-truck spread" in the four color print process. The minimum target for use in most brochures and magazine spreads was 11 by 17 inches. Since film didn't have a set DPI we just aimed for as much quality as we could. The color separators were the ones who converted our analog film to measurable CMYK files. 

But the clients and the color separators were always happier with the biggest pieces of film you could deliver. And to get the jobs that required this; and paid the best, you had to show portfolios that were creative, beautiful and also technically as good as they could be. Clients reviewed portfolios by calling in actual enlarger printed "books" or portfolios. Another way of presenting work was to have black matted 4x5 or 8x10 inch color transparencies to show... because....everyone had a light table and a loupe back then. Splash twenty or so rich and detailed 8x10 inch transparencies down on a light table, watch an art director dive into the detail and technical achievements and you were well on your way to booking your next job. 

It feels like it was around 2006 or 2007 that the creative community collectively decided that calling in portfolios and shipping heavy collections of transparencies or big selections of prints around the country via Federal Express was too expensive and had become unnecessary. As budgets tightened and art directors started getting spread thinner and thinner fewer of them took actual phone calls from creative freelancers and more and more of them started looking at websites when they were considering hiring photographers. 

All of a sudden big, beautiful physical presentations went out the window ---- like typesetters. At that juncture clients started relying on what they saw via email promotions, and websites that were always a compromise between speed of loading and quality. The photographers at the top suffered most because the presentation formats killed the ability to show off the richness of a beautifully made, large format image by rendering it a fraction of its actual size and also at a diminished bit depth. The web became locked into Jpeg files, rendered to about 1600 pixels, distilled down to 8 bit and then represented, compressed, onto a 6 bit (if you were lucky) monitor. It's a huge difference when compared to viewing a pristine print or transparency presentation firsthand. In person. Right there in front of you. 

Now things are even worse when it comes to presentation. A lot of younger art directors and designers are getting by using laptops for work. The images they see are even further diminished. A lot of creative professionals are scrolling through Instagram or even Flickr to find photographic talent. And while broadband has improved the load times and sizes of webpage images the viewing restrictions and monitor capabilities are still depreciation funnels for good photography. What clients see on various screens, viewed in mixed light conditions, is nothing like what prior portfolios used to be. And on the social media sites your work, which may have started life as something beautifully lit and gorged full of delicate and wonderful detail will now sit next to other peoples' work, some of which is edited down to be more adaptable and easier to digest on phone screens. Incredibly detailed work next to work customized for quick consumption on a small screen. 

Which begs the question in 2023... why in the heck are we endlessly pursuing "better" cameras and lenses? Unless you are routinely printing large or delivering files to people who will use them to print large it's mostly a waste of money and then there's all that time lost "researching" new gear. To be honest, while I bought and use a Leica SL2 if I'd had more time and experience with the 24 megapixels SL I would have stopped right there. Perfect camera and perfect image size for so much of what we do all the time. For one or two jobs a year that require more quality and resolution than 24 megapixels it makes a tremendous amount more sense to just rent the needed gear. 

Same with the Leica Q2. I would love the weather tight Q2 body and nicer button configuration but wrapped around a 24 megapixel sensor instead of the current 47+ megapixel sensor. True...you can crop more. But do you really need to? And how much quality is diminished by cropping if your final target destination is something 1600 pixels max on Instagram? Really? More? You need more?

For those few clients who really do want to see how much quality they can expect we put up galleries at full res on Smugmug.com. They are still 8 bit files but at least we can show them with all the detail that's contained within. And I still send out printed mailers from time to time. But we are now at the point where the final targets on most jobs actually are the websites and social media sites that are related to the client business. So, where do we go from here?  Is it time to sell everything before everyone else realizes how bizarre the market has become? Can we do it all with our phones? More importantly = will anyone actually want to pay us to make photographs with our phones? The jury is still out. I guess we'll wait and see....

Overkill? Wasted resources? How many phones could we have bought instead....?

this was a huge file. Not anymore....

OT: Survived the early morning appt. with my dermatologist. No issues. Even made it to swim practice on time. Actually, early. Good start to a cloudy, gray day. Now the dentist appointment looms large. ("looms" = for JC).

And here we are again at tax time. The bane of working photographers. Well, one of the banes. Can there be multiple banes?

 

Urban Landscapes. Camera: Leica SL2. Lens: Sigma 45mm f2.8 

When I look through my image files I find that I really like what I'm calling, for want of a better category name, urban landscapes. These can be anything except landscapes of just natural terrain and no evidence of buildings, people, structures, etc. This was taken because I was attracted to the look of the sky and the Austonian building was the perfect foil to the vague structure of clouds. I also seemed to have found an angle at which none of the other downtown buildings intruded into the frame. 

The exif information tells me I was using a Sigma 45mm f2.8. It's a cheap and underrated lens. I don't like to stop down much so this was shot at f4.5. When I look at the full frame file; even though it was shot in Jpeg, I love the very high sharpness and the wonderful colors and tones. 

I should be filling the "pages" here with beguiling street photography from SXSW this week but to be truthful the show seems very anemic this year. Not particularly well attended; at least at street level, and even at that most of the attendees look like they all came from the same mall. Gone are the music "gangsters" all dressed in black and trying to look dangerous. Most of the people here this year look like young, mid-level managers who convinced their bosses that some value might be derived from attendance.  After all, no want wants to miss out on the next Twitter.com (sarcasm intended). 

Day after day I've been making a valiant effort to drive into the heart of downtown and find compelling images but the universe seems only to be presenting me with a never ending stream of middle class kids and their slightly wealthier peers. The full access price to attend of $1895 might have something to do with the homogenous demographic...

The sky and the buildings never seem to fail me. And I like looking at them. I'll go down once again today and give it another stab. 

Consider picking up the 45mm f2.8. It's not an earth shattering lens but it's got a quality that says, "I'm well made, well designed and can make your photographs look a bit more interesting. As an added plus I am small and easy to carry around." 

The beefy Leica SL2 makes none of these promises. 

Refrigerator news: Guy came yesterday and replaced the master control board in my four month old GE French door refrigerator. 24 hours later it's still cooling appropriately, not frosting over and not making odd noises. I guess I'll consider it fixed. I put the last of the milk in there today. I'm slowly recovering my emotional equilibrium about appliances today. If the fridge makes it through the weekend I'll stop thinking about it for a while.

Tax news: My partner, B, is usually the person who pulls together all the endless tranches of information to distill down and send to our CPA to do our duty to pay taxes to keep our nation strong. But this year she is out of town taking care of a family member. The burden of paperwork and far reaching task of acquiring information from banks, brokerage companies, credit card accounts and black, offshore hordes of gold bullion have fallen to me. Oops! Forget that part about the offshore gold bullion. I meant chicken bullion; really. 

I guess it was about time I realized how much work is involved in getting everything together. My target day for completion is Monday. Our long time CPA ensures me that this will be ample time to get the return out in time. Funny, when I look at the raw numbers I always come to the haggard realization that I spent more than I thought I had and, conversely, I made less money that I imagined. I guess it all comes out in the wash. 

At any rate I set up a six foot long table to spread everything out on and my CPA kindly sent over an associate to help me organize a bit. Now, if I can only remember some of the passwords I haven't used in a year...

Happy Swim News: I have been working out with weight machines at the local gym under the watchful eye of a good trainer. She pushes me more that I would push myself but it seems to be paying off. I was able to hold the corner of the car up with one hand yesterday as I changed the tire with the other hand... Okay, that's not true. But I have noticed that my swimming is improving by leaps and bounds. 

Many of the sets of machines I'm using I've selected because they build specific swim muscles: triceps, lats, shoulders and back. I'm also using a leg press machine as often and with as much challenge as possible. My pushes and streamlines off the walls are more powerful and so I get more distance from each turn. We call that "free speed." I also swam the most beautiful series of 25 yard butterfly sets I've swum in years. It's enough to push me to WANT to go and lift weights instead of just doing so because I think it the right thing to do. 

Now I'm pretty much convinced that everyone over 50, and certainly every every one over 60 should be hitting the gym three or four times a week as an added part of their long term fitness regimen. 

Prevention Month at VSL: It's the time of the year when I get checked out by my crack medical team. Tomorrow we've got a 7 a.m. (curses! what was I thinking when I scheduled this?) appointment with my dermatologist, Dan, who will inspect every square inch of my skin, look for stuff that might kill me, and nuke all the stuff that's just....unattractive. Many hate the sting of liquid nitrogen but I live for the tingle of it. I hope my enhanced vigilance with sunscreen and pre-morning light swims pays off and nothing is too frightening. 

In keeping with the prevention theme tomorrow afternoon is also my every six month encounter with my dentist and her hygienist. Yes! I have been flossing very regularly since the last visit and I've learned to appreciate my Braun Oral B toothbrush. It's even got bluetooth. Why? I've never figured that out. But it's great to get one's teeth cleaned and inspected. The mouth bacteria seems to be a precursor to lots of nastier conditions throughout the body. Inflammation and all that sort of stuff. A clean mouth is a happy mount and more people will want to kiss a fresh and healthy mouth. Yum. I hope, after paying hundreds of dollars I get a free toothbrush to keep in my swim bag...

At the end of the month I'll spend two days with my regular G.P. measuring body fat, heart rhythms, blood chemistry, oxygen uptake, blood pressure, vision, hearing, balance, and even check for cognitive decline. It's always fun to be poked, prodded, and chastened about the deficiencies of my lifestyle. I can hear it now ---- "are you eating your twelve servings a day of kale?"  

It's interesting. I never paid much attention to preventative stuff in my youth but statistically getting on top of anything that's going out of whack quickly and with people who know your history is a huge plus for longevity. And by extension happiness. 

My favorite example is that a routine skin check back in 2021 discovered a squamous cell cancer on my face. Left to my own devices I might not have noticed it for a while and when it comes to cosmetic surgery on your face the small the radius a surgeon can work it the better. That early detection helped me retain my movie star good looks....

That's all I have for today. Still waiting on Mike Johnston to answer all the questions he requested last weekend. Can't wait!!!