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