I didn't photograph the kid's play, JUNGALBOOK, in black and white but when I started messing around with B&W conversions I just couldn't stop.

I photographed a play on Saturday. The scenery and costumes were very colorful and the play itself was tremendous fun. Even for 63 year olds. I photographed it mostly with two cameras; one equipped with a prime, 56mm 1.2 lens and the other fitted with a 16-55mm f2.8 zoom lens.  After I did my post production on the 1,000+ files and sent along a huge gallery of brilliant color images I waded back into the ocean of files and started pulling out some of my favorites with the intention of tweaking them a bit further and sending them over to the marketing team as "Kirk's selects." 

I pulled the first image into SnapSeed and played around for a bit. I liked my color tweaks just fine but then I hit the black and white menu and I had too much fun. There's a film look in the program but it's way, way too contrasty for any imaginable human use. But it does have a brightness slider, a contrast slider (of which I made considerable and successful use) and a grain slider. Rendering your images into edgy black and whites is both edgy and filled with a nostalgic memory of how at least 90% of our jobs were done when I first started out.

Here's my very limited set of black and white variations from the play, JUNGALBOOK, at ZachTheatre.org. If you want to see the difference between the black and white versions and the original color ones I've set up a small gallery on Smugmug.com: https://kirktuck.smugmug.com/A-group-of-selects-and-variations-for-Jungal-Book-at/n-52n6ZL/

Go take a peek and see the difference.

Cameras: Fujifilm X-H1.

Brand Agnosticism. More fun or more work? One Afternoon of Kirk's Street Photography in Austin, Texas. Shot with a Sony Nex 6. Black and Whites.

Click on any image to start the slide show....

Someone in an interview on Fstoppers.com called me, "Truly gear agnostic." I think they meant it as a compliment. At least I took it that way. The context of the statement was a discussion about how people get locked into brands and are loathe to change even when the change may benefit them. I was cited as an example of a person who largely rejected brand loyalty and would generally seek to match the camera to my project, my point of view----my mood. I like to play with different systems because it keeps my mind and fingers from getting bored. The flip side of the equation is that you have to learn a lot of different menus in order to play camera roulette. I suck at memorizing menus...

At one point a few years ago I decided that I really liked the Sony Nex-6. The price to play wasn't very steep so I bought one and the little kit lens, and a 50mm, and went zooming around taking photographs. Over time I found out what I didn't like about the camera and moved on but it was refreshing to go back through a Lightroom catalog and see what that little camera could do. These images were all taken one afternoon in downtown Austin. At the time I was obsessed with peoples' obsessions with their cellphones. But I did veer from that theme when I came across other images that begged to be taken. Camera set to black and white. Phasers set to stun. Go. 

Modern dating.

"...and it can teleport things..."

Modern meeting.

Trying it both ways.

Photographers tend to be an "all or nothing" crew.  When we gear up for a shoot we focus in like lasers on the exact gear we presume will be the best for the job of the moment, then we pack it up and go.  But sometimes the license to experiment comes hand in hand with the job at hand.  I can't tell you why I packed up my Hasselblad 501 CM and the 120mm Makro lens along with my Canon gear on the morning that Amy and I went off to make portraits of scientists for one of our favorite technology companies.  It wasn't logical or rational.  And I can't tell you why I stuck a couple of 120 rolls of Kodak's venerable Tri-X in my pocket either.

We were making portraits of people against white that would become ads and posters.  We shot digital and tethered all morning long and paid close attention to things like white lab coats edged against the white background.  It was great to have some instant proofing.  The firewire connection had no problem matching my shooting speed.  It was a smooth but careful shoot.  The ad agency had no interest in experimenting with film.  But I did.

We had some time between sessions so I asked this scientist if we could take a few quick shots and she agreed.  I extrapolated the Tri-X exposure from the Canon 1DS mk2 ISO 100 exposure.  It should have been two stops different but I went with one and two thirds stops difference because I like a slightly thicker negative and I was certain that Tri-X could handle as much over exposure as I wanted to throw at it without blocking up.

I think my subject enjoyed a little foray into historic imaging technology.  I know I did.  We chatted about it for a few moments while I licked the little band that secures the backing paper around the exposed film, and then we were done.

When my assistant, Amy, and I got back to the studio and finished unloading I got straight to work backing up the digital files, creating web galleries and doing all the back end work we now take for granted.  A few days later I dropped the roll of film by the lab and asked them to "develop and contact."

The next time I was in the neighborhood I pulled into the lab and picked up the film.  A quick glance across the contact sheet and I zeroed in on two frames.  One somber and one smiling.  I scanned the smiling one and made one or two little adjustments.  I compared it with the digital file, painstakingly resolved from a big raw file and worked on meticulously in PhotoShop, and I must plainly say that the digital files rendering of skin tones in digital is not up to par with film technology from the 1960's and 1970's.  You can blame my technique if you want and you can direct me to countless thousands of people on the web who may have mastered black and white in the digital age but all stories are anecdotal unless you live them.

I can dump Canon files in SilverFX and create lots of stuff that's close but it's the tonal range that always seems to give it away for me.  The midrange always seems like gray mush.  I am consistently amazed that, with one or two little tweaks I can get wonderful black and white from the real thing (black and white film)  but the voodoo of manipulating color tones in relation to skin tones in relation to digital files seems so arduous by comparison.  Maybe it's just me.  I can accept that.

After I got this file back I had a husband and wife contact me about photographing them.  They wanted images showing her pregnancy.  I had the studio all set to do a digital session but when they showed up she remarked that she loved the look of square, black and white photographs.  I proofed with the Canon 5Dmk2 but I shot in earnest with the Hasselblad and Fuji Acros 100.  I got the contact sheets back today.  I am still in love with black and white film.  I don't care if it's less convenient.  It just looks better.....

So, for all the people who were getting bored with the writing about the Nikon V1.........viva la difference!

(If you are going to comment about print quality, please keep in mind that the image above is 1600 pixels wide and the original is capable of being cleanly scanned at 16,000 pixels wide. It's also been converted from 16 bits of grayscale to 8 bits of sRGB color. Just mentioning...)

Free Versus Free.

It's that time of the year again. The Austin director of the Kipp Schools would like me to donate time and energy to help them with their annual report. Their AR is one of their principal fund raising tools. We've done the last four, won some Addy Awards and some local awards and generally helped move their game forward. The Kipp schools are non-profit charter schools that serve an incredibly important function. They provide a top quality, college prep education for children with brains and talent who are underserved in public schools. According to a huge article in the New York Times the people who do the Kipp schools have achieved amazing results. Given the opportunity the kids excel. They match the test scores of kids from affluent neighborhoods. Amazing stuff.

The job will take a couple of days of shooting on location. A couple days of post processing and a few meetings. They would like me to donate my services and I will. I'll do it because it's an educational cause I believe in, the economy has provided me ample free time, and it's a nice showcase for my work. Does this mean that I believe in doing free work as a means of promotion? No.

I've been following a thread on the web wherein the original poster complained about Google asking professional (meaning established, working designers) to submit spec designs for material that would be used on various websites. If accepted there is no other payment than the implication that one's work would be seen by millions of viewers.

This follows on the heels of various posts on the web that contend the only way to break into New York's closed circle of fashion magazines is to offer to work for free. Many people rushed to protest this point of view. And there is a an obvious disconnection.

Supporters of the "work for free" theory suggest that it will bring in massive amounts of commissioned work at highly profitable rates. They further suggest that this the paradigm of the future for artists so we should stop whining and get with the program. They point to photographic luminaries such as Joe McNally and David Hobby as examples of people who are giving away their photo knowledge and prospering. And here's the disconnect: David and Joe have products to sell that are different than photo commissions. They are selling books, DVDs and workshops. Their rationed release of information, and Joe's scintillating stories from the field have as their goal to sell product. Their blogs are not aimed at clients, in fact, if we are to be honest our advertising clients have little interest or time to cruise photographer's blogs. So while David and Joe are prospering by offering free samples they are prospering by selling intellectual property through these vehicles and not art.

For large companies to leverage their reach and their resources to exploit and extract time, intellectual property and art from single person businesses by making vague insinuations about the value of exposure is unethical and immoral. Helping out your family or your favorite cause is part of our common pact with each other and with civilization. Helping a major corporation become wealthier by becoming a "scab", and a free one at that creates inertia that pushes artists further and further away from being able to survive financially in this world.

There are those who argue that they have no obligation to support artists. I agree. The market will decide which artist succeed financially and which will fail. But I would argue that a person supported by his or her profession who muddies the waters of the creative markets by placing the aggrandizement of their ego over the welfare of society in general and, by extension, the fate of the arts, is making choices that will make our culture coarser and less compassionate. I think that's sad. If you are good enough to do the work you should be paid for it in real currency.

Here are my ground rules for donating my services as a photographer: The cause must be good. The entity must be a non-profit. The use of my art must conform to best industry practices. The final piece should have a clear goal and a clear set of metrics with which to measure success.

If you are a full time doctor, lawyer, IT guy, etc. and you are giving work to corporations for free that they would otherwise pay for you are disrupting a system that supports imaginative thinking and creativity. That's all.