On the (slightly tattered) red carpet.

"street photo" taken on a lovely afternoon in Montreal. 2023.

Yeah. It was on the desktop...

 It's been pouring down rain since late last night. Nothing around me has flooded yet but it's cold, gray, dismal and wet outside. The first day in a while that I've really just felt like staying in the studio, running the little space heater and working on scanning more old negatives. To what end? I'm not really sure but like most men I seem to enjoy the process of trying to master some things. In this case, making digital copies/files from analog film. And so far it's coming along well enough.

When I sit down at the desk to work on content I always take a look at the desktop first. The sprawl of icons that end up on my screen. The imaging icons seem to breed like little rabbits and, if left unchecked will soon cover my entire workspace. So, every once in a while (like when I am weather-limited) I take a few minutes to build a new folder on a big hard drive and put all the orphaned and recently used images them into it. Maybe I call it: "11a-Desktop Images Archive started Jan-2024, various." I have no real system so next time I'm just as likely to label a similar folder in a completely different way.

After talking to a few advertising people last week, on one of my adventures to photograph people in their locations, I got the disquieting feeling that the range of potential, human-created, real images needed for advertising content is narrowing again. Mostly due to generative artificial intelligence. The preponderance of cheaply available stock photos which can then be used as the basis for computer manipulated images is part of the trend as is the continuing spread of easy to use machine driven imaging. It's just too easy and too available for many advertising agencies (themselves struggling to profit...) to pass up. What it means for working photographers is pretty obvious. Less work. 

I seem to have, over the years, picked a niche that is still intact. That is the making of portraits of real people inside real businesses, corporations, associations, etc. Even in advertising, to this point, people have desired authentic images of real people, though this small spur specialty is sure to change. 

Were I at the starting line in the photography business I'd be concerned. Existentially concerned. But having labored so long in the vineyards of image creation I now see the trend as just another trend. And I take comfort in knowing that there are plenty of "old hands" in the adverting and marketing sectors who will likely always prefer the ways of doing stuff that they grew up with. And are growing older with. And as some have said, maybe photographing real people in authentic situations will become a popular push back to the generative A.I. technology wave in the same way as vinyl is to the music industry. Or film photography is to digital. It'll be a small part of the overall market but the reality is that smaller trends like these have mostly been rich veins for people that can figure out both the appeal and the markets. 

I feel insulated from the shock of changing markets at this point. But I'm interested in seeing where the wave is going. Working with old film negatives from big medium format cameras is certainly piquing my interest in going backwards for some of the personal work I'd like to do. So far using the MF digital cameras in the way I always used MF film cameras is keeping the desire to retrograde to film gear in check but... we'll see how long the resistance persists. 

I keep thinking I should pare down my camera inventory but .... to what end? I like the stuff I have and until Leica makes something really enticing I don't have much motivation to change up or down. I'm reasonably certain that we'll see an SL3 in the next few months. Equally convinced that it will have a 61 megapixel sensor and phase detect AF. All very nice. But I'm not getting the full impact of the 47 megapixel cameras I already have. Still, it's fun to see the slow motion churn of Leica products while knowing full well that the waiting lists for them will make actually owning one something to look forward to in about a year from now. Or longer. 

In the meantime my love affair with the 10+ year old Leica M240 cameras continue unabated. I seem to have maxed out the useful collection of lenses for the little system and I'm a bit embarrassed that none of the lenses is from Leica. Two of the lenses I use for that system are from Carl Zeiss (28, 35) while the other two (50, 75) are from Voigtlander. Ah, the beauty of a mount no longer protected by patents.... 

All four of the lenses are wonderful. All work well now that I've profiled the wide angles. The M cameras are wonderful to shoot, hold and fondle. And, at around $2500 for good, used examples, they are actually affordable --- especially when paired with used, non-Leica lenses. So much fun. 

Well. Back to work. I've got film to scan. Or copy. Suit yourself when it comes to terminology. I know I will. 

About to schedule the third big tranche of work for January. Amazing to me.