Happy Thanksgiving! I'm thankful that camera introductions have slowed down enough so we can take time to enjoy what we've already got.

2005-2013. Those were heady years for camera introductions! Many a baleful and plodding blogger paid his mortgage introducing camera lovers to an ever expanding and ever "improving" flow of cameras; each camera model arriving with just enough new features and performance boosts to make a recently purchased model seem old, obsolete and borderline unusable. This, in turn, prompted photographers and camera lovers to keep chasing after each new camera model because of their fear, in commercial circles, that they would be missing out on a feature that clients might find useful --- which might give an opportunity to competitors who were quicker to upgrade. Amateurs felt that any additional advantage would help them make better and better photographs. The bloggers who incessantly praised new cameras didn't really care whether a newer camera was better than an older one as long as their reviews could generate revenue through their affiliate links. 

It was a crazy time in the industry. The turnover of gear was astounding. The ability to spend seemed bottomless. But in truth? It was mostly money down the drain. The benefits of the churn rewarded the camera makers and their co-conspirators; the recipients of affiliate cash, much, much more than it ever did the working photographers or the people who were trying to polish up their camera skills. 

And, if you go back and read the blogs most of the writers postured and pretended that the "new" camera was so much better that they found themselves on the fence and might be buying one with their own money. But, most never did follow through and as soon as the access to the sample loaner expired so then did their interest in the new model. But that was okay for them because it was a time in which a new camera or lens from another maker was already arriving via the Fedex truck. 

Hoodwinked by persuasive writing so many people rushed to buy based on the sweet words of "reviewers" who had never worked a real photo job in their lives. Or even worse, people were taking advice from writers who had tried their hands at photography only to not succeed. To not make the grade. To not have successful encounters with cameras! 

Pretty darn amazing. My least favorite type of manipulation was perpetrated by "influencers" who never even touched the cameras before writing their reviews.  Bold. Insightful? Manipulative!!!! But I guess it's all fair game if money is involved. 

But we seem to have turned the corner. At least for a while. Many regular folks are realizing that the cameras they bought three years ago, five years ago, even ten years ago still work perfectly well. Some older cameras, by my measure, are even better than the latest models. Or at least they are less complex in actual use --- which counts for a lot.

About four years ago I bought a Leica SL camera. That's a camera that was introduced to the market back in October of 2015. Nearly ten years ago. It's a solid, full frame, 24 megapixel mirrorless camera which lacks a few features people take for granted these days but is, frankly, the most fun and best performing camera I have ever used. I liked it so much I bought a second one as a back-up. Then?  Covid interceded and camera makers slowed down the pipeline of new introductions and, since there was no compelling reason to get rid of the first SL, or the second one I bought as a back up, I had time to really get to know and appreciate the original. 

And if push came to shove today, in very late 2024, if I had to sell one of the Leicas the SL2 I bought later would go ---long before either of the two SL camera bodies. The older model is just more or less perfect ---- for me. I have a friend who works professionally and bought one of the first Nikon D850s to hit the market. He could well afford to buy any camera on the market right now without breaking a sweat but when he compares the new options against his tried and true D850 he sees absolutely no compelling reasons to "upgrade." 

The basic fact is that there have been very few actual/noticable improvements in cameras, image sensor design, or camera firmware over the last five years. At least not improvements that make a difference for the grand spectrum of our actual practices. And even comparisons with older cameras show that the newest gear has gained at most very small, almost imperceptible improvements in the way photographs look coming from any of the comparable cameras. People have learned now that it's okay to step back, take a breather, and enjoy the use of the cameras they've already had, and mastered, instead of being on the prowl for the next one. Which is great for the end user because the next one might not benefit them much --- if at all. 

While this line of thought is true for most professional photographers (I'll exempt sports photographers who've been brainwashed into believing that ever higher frame rates are always mission critical) it's even more true for the folks that don't need to earn a living working with their cameras. For them, if the camera did what they wanted it to when they bought it, and it still delivers the photographs they want today, then for all intents and purposes there is no reason at all for them to lose money trading in a long time friend for a pricey new friend of unproven quality. It's probably the case that their D800, D810, Canon 5D3 or Sony whatever works perfectly well for all of their uses and all of the targets for which their output is intended. 

So, today I am thankful for all the things most happy adults are thankful for. A great kid. A wonderful spouse. Life in a fun city. Good friends. Health, and more. But I am also thankful that we aren't subject to the near endless equipment churn we endured in the past. That we now have time and space to appreciate what we already have in the camera bags --- and now have the bandwidth to relax and enjoy the gear that has been a steady companion for years instead of months.

That's a relaxing prospect for this blogger in particular. I have little to no interest in writing about an endless progression of new cameras. And even less interest in begging for money via affiliate links that tout products 99% of my readers don't need and probably don't want. Refreshing.

On a more moving note..... I drove to San Antonio today to have Thanksgiving Lunch with my in-laws, my spouse and my adult son. The dinner and time spent were wonderful. No conflict. No political fired discussions. No drama. Just mutual respect and ample servings of love. But the real story is in the driving. 

The weather was perfect for driving a car. Clear, clean highways with temperatures in the 60s. I made the round trip in the Subaru Legacy Sport I bought earlier this year. With nearly seven thousand miles on the odometer I have decided that I love sedans far more than SUVs, and that every big sedan should have a big, powerful motor, and high performance tires. I averaged 80 mph on the highway while getting 30.8 mpg. The car is heavy and solid on the road with a great, low center of gravity. The way the turbo kicks in when passing other cars is amazing. And exhilarating. 

Traffic on the way home was light. I drove fast. But no faster than the rest of the other crazy Texans blazing down the highway. I'd almost forgotten how much fun driving can be when you aren't stuck in midtown traffic, or stuck in an bloaty SUV bouncing down the road on the automotive equivalent of an easy chair. Vroom. Vroom. 

Tomorrow I will be thankful for everything I wrote above but will be additionally thankful for swim practice in the morning. We didn't swim today because of the holiday. Sad. But what can you do?

Dance with the camera that brung ya? Relish the classics? It's all good.

Here's a book recommendation: David Hobby, of the Strobist.com fame, wrote a book that was published this year. It's called, "The Travel Photographer's Manifesto." It is by far the best book I've read on the subject and you can be sure that it's not just a self-serving vehicle used to print a portfolio of greatest hits because there are no photos in the entire book. Just great writing (not weird, overly fraught academic pablum) and lot of great information. I learned a ton.... and I thought I already knew everything about photography (smile emoji goes here....). I'd buy this book again in a heartbeat. David walks the walk (actually makes a living taking photographs) and talks the talk (well, I guess writes the writing....). Whatever. Just go over to Amazon and buy a copy. If you don't like it a lot then you might just be a landscape photographer ---- or an odd duck who doesn't at least think about traveling. And photographing. 

No hidden agenda here. No links to David's book. No cash in my hands.

Final Thanksgiving advice. Don't trust the writer who does love to read fiction. A favorite quote: 

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one. - George R.R. Martin

 And a sad one at that.

Night.

 

Let's talk about a fun job!

There is a medical practice here in Austin for which I've been making photographs, video and written content for nearly thirty years. There is a constant roster of sixteen doctors and each one is also a partner in the practice. The jobs range from the typical "doctor in white coat looking congenial and concerned" to event coverage and photos of their different locations/buildings for their website. 

To a person they are all pleasant, collegial with me, and down to earth. When one doctor retires the rest take a good long time to interview, interview and interview potential new additions to the practice. It's fun to watch. They only want to bring in fellow doctors that they'd enjoy hanging out and socializing with. 

About fifteen years ago they decided they'd like to do a group photo for use on holiday cards and various promos. Their marketing staff decided on a location which had as its background the downtown skyline of Austin. It was on the front plaza of a big event center just south of Lady Bird Lake (which used to be named, Town Lake). The plaza has a  big arch and, in the late afternoon I could arrange for the group to be in open shade. Without the building the doctors would have been in the same sun angle as the downtown skyscrapers. The shade of the building kept the docs from being directly lit with harsh sun. 

The problem for the photographer to solve was that the open shade was three to four stops darker than the full sun on the buildings. A correct exposure for the buildings would leave the docs in the dark. Obviously, they needed to be lit to a level that would compete with the sun. We'd need powerful fill flash.

The first year we did this kind of photo I used a battery powered flash with two heads. It was called an Elinchrom Ranger RX. The battery powered generator put out 1200 watt seconds and the power could be evenly distributed as 600 watt seconds to each flash head. Nice. Powerful. Just right. 

With enough power you could distribute the light across 16 subjects and gain f11 @ whatever your highest sync speed might be. Enough to evenly light the foreground while maintaining a good exposure on the skyline. 

Over the years I made use of several different flash systems. After the Elinchrom I tried one year with a set of Alien Bees monolights and one of the Alien Bees battery power packs. Those power packs used sealed lead acid batteries which made the whole combination quite heavy. But it all worked. When it worked. 

The next time we did the images in that space (about once every four years) I used a Profoto battery powered system which consisted of a battery box/flash generator and two flash heads. The power was lower, at 600 watt seconds, but we were able to time the near end of day light on the buildings with the full power output of the Profoto units to get the right balance of exposure.

This year I used two Godox AD200Pro flashes firing into a dual, bare bulb head for my main fill light. It was less power than I'd used in the past but I knew we could make it work by 

 

Sea Change. Getting rid of lots of stuff. Feels good to downsize the inventory from time to time.

From the fashion shows at the Louvre. 1994

Certain photographers who worked professionally through the decades have a propensity for accumulating more and more stuff as time goes on. I count myself among the worst offenders. I've rarely met a lens or a camera body in which I wasn't at least passingly interested. Recently I looked into a drawer that holds most of my lenses and realized that things have gotten a bit out of hand. Especially when it comes to vintage 50mm lenses. Then there's my whole flirtation over the last year and a half with the Fuji medium format cameras and various MF lenses. I also found that I have too many big LED fixtures but that's not really my fault. I found newer ones with better, more consistent color and in one stroke they made my previous, first line LED lights obsolete. But the bottom line is that all this stuff is too much to keep up with and needs to go. 

A friend of mine offered to sell the Fuji stuff, and assorted lenses, on Fred Miranda for me. That's great. I'll do much better than trading it in on store credit here in Austin. But everything else? I just want to move it out of the physical space and the mental space. If I make money on it that's swell. If I don't that's no sweat either.

Which brings me to today's subject: The cost of mind space as it relates to diverse photo gear. 

It dawned on me when Leica discontinued M240 batteries as retail items ( you can still order them as parts, thank you! European consumer protection laws!!!) that having lots of different cameras means having to have lots of different batteries on hand. And though they last a long time they are, in the end, a perishable item. Batteries have a finite life and they also require routine maintenance during their lives. Lithium batteries need to be charged and used from time to time to ensure their long term health. Spread that around several different camera systems and you might end up with lots of batteries to think about. That takes up a share of brain power.  Having to keep track of them all is more trouble than it might be worth. One reason I love my Leica SL and Q stuff is that they all take exactly the same kind of battery and the batteries for these current and recent cameras keep improving (more power) as they become more affordable (price drop from $285 to $200 for the SCL-4 versus the newer SCL-6). One battery type works in everything from the original SL to the SL2 to the SL2-S to the Q2. The newer SCL-6 batteries I have been buying are the same as those that come with the (on perennial back-order) Q3-43 camera, should it ever arrive. But the batteries for the big Fuji 50Sii are a whole different kettle of carp and are disappointing when it comes to the amount of charge delivered to the camera. They just run out of power too soon. 

Having used the Fuji 50Sii for the better part of two years now I'm ready to see it gone. The files from the camera can be great but....  In the Texas heat I get temperature warnings almost every day that I try to use it outside. Not right away but frequently enough to assure me that it's not really a "professional" piece of gear. Good in an air conditioned studio but that's as far as it goes. The focus ability isn't what I would call quick and....the files are just about as good as those from my SL2 and I anticipate that they won't be any better than the SL3 camera I've been eyeing. I guess technique still matters.

All the manual focus lenses I've accrued for the Fuji are Pentax 645 lenses that I use with an adapter. The lenses are all quite good but everything is too heavy. They all would have made sense in earlier days when I was working more with assistants and also more frequently in the studio but now they are just an unnecessary burden. The sooner they leave my orbit the less I have to consider.

The general equipment purge is delicious. As I close in on complete retirement from the commercial field I find that many of the previous rationales I held onto for keeping certain gear in inventory are no longer apt. They no longer make sense. An example? Well, when I was photographing endless dress rehearsals at the theatre, shooting mainly from mid-house, I needed longer lenses. I depended on a series of 70-200mm lenses from various makers. The last one was the Panasonic S-Pro 70-200mm f4.0. It was rugged and reliable and I felt that I could not deliver the tighter images I needed in the mix without it. 

I stopped photographing dress rehearsal in the big theater back in early 2021 and, miraculously, I've found absolutely no need for any lenses longer than 90-100mm in my daily work. The 70-200mm left the studio several years ago and I've never looked back. I harbor no longing for a new one or a new variation. Around the same time I stopped doing multi-camera video productions and no longer need an assortment of microphones, gimbals and additional tripods. On one of our last video projects of a live concert production I was setting up five 4K video cameras. Four ran in unmanned set-ups while one was used as a main, or follow camera. When I quit doing that kind of work it orphaned three or four tripods and other assorted gear in short order. 

These days I am mostly doing environmental portraits for companies. I never need a lens longer than 90mm and I never really need lenses shorter than 35mm for 99.99% of the commissions. It's a pretty tight window of focal length requirements. But I do keep some wider lenses around for the errant street or tourist-type city scapes; just in case. 

In the past I would have said that our gear lust mirrors the parabola of our enthusiasm for the art form. We begin tentatively and then, as we gain more knowledge and money we buy more and more stuff, experiment with a wider range of options and generally expand out to, or past, our comfort zones. Only when we pull back would our equipment lust go out like the tide. I would have said this but now I know better. I know it's quite possible to maintain the enthusiasm and passion but at the same time pursue a narrower and narrower selection of necessary tools. And, if this is true of cameras and lenses I think it is also equally true of lighting gear and lighting modifiers. 

Stuff left the studio yesterday and today. The space looks bigger now. Less cluttered. Big enough for a couple of billiard tables (God forbid!!!) but not big enough for an indoor Olympic pool... There are now fewer decisions to be made when I get ready to walk out the door to work or just to make fun photographs for myself. And that's a good thing. The next purge will have to be extra tripods and also light stands. The studio feels over run by C-Stands. And heavy duty light stands of all kinds. 

More and more often I find myself going out into the world with a beater Leica SL and an older Carl Zeiss 50mm f1.4. Not the big Milvus version but the much more manageable previous model. Seems like a good combination for most things. And it falls nicely into my routine. 

Marie Kondo had a good mantra. She suggested evaluating your possessions and only keeping the ones that continually bring you joy. It's a tough standard but you have to start somewhere. 

Have you winnowed stuff down to a manageable pile? It's never too late or early to start...

 

Revisiting a post from a recent blog at a different address: "Old dogs gotta learn new tricks if they want to do business in a fast evolving economy. Can't rest on old laurels...."

It's human nature to find a way to do a job, have some success, and then doggedly try to do things the same way; over and over again. Some of us seem to be highly resistant to change -- no matter what that intransigence costs us. I remember, during my 40 year career, the transition from shooting everything on 4x5 film to shooting almost everything on medium format film, and then transitioning again to 35mm film. When we learned to get everything just right on our film cameras we barely had time to take a deep breath before we had to do the whole process again for digital. And we went through many iterations of digital before real innovation slowed down.  

Lighting too has changed. At the outset of my career studio electronic flash systems (heads and packs) were frightfully expensive, heavy as boat anchors and fraught with danger. Over time lighting units got smaller, lighter, less dangerous and more controllable. Then, all of a sudden, we were offered lots of units that had features like 1/10th of a stop power control, reliable radio triggers built in, and....big change....the ability to do powerful flash exposures with battery powered units. No more extension cords. No plugging stuff into the wall sockets and praying the circuit breakers wouldn't trip. Then we started experimenting with LED light, etc, etc. 

Now I am convinced that the majority of basic photography projects can be done and done well with a late model iPhone. But for some reason duffers want to make everything as complicated as it was back in the days of film, and lights that had few, if any options beyond on and off, full, half and quarter power. Most of the duffer-ism stems from a profound resistance to learning new stuff. On so many levels. 

Portrait photographers no longer delivery paper proofs. Wanna see which portrait you like best? There's a private web gallery for that. Want to deliver thousands of high resolution (big) files to your clients? There are inexpensive and easy to use file transfer apps you can use. But you'll need to upgrade your internet access if you are still locked into a cheap, slow service. 

Commercial photographers are transitioning to take advantage of newer file enhancement features that are made possible by A.I. which are being incorporated into existing programs as new features. And we use them more and more. I've hit a tipping point at which it's easier, better and more advantageous for my clients if I photograph their portraits against a neutral background and then composite them into an appropriate pre-shot background using some of the new selection tools in PhotoShop. Bitch all you want about A.I. but at this particular level what you are really doing is taking chance out of the equation for your business. No more endless location scouting for environmental portraits only to show up some place on a shoot day and find: The weather sucks. The building you were going to use as a background just got demolished. The shoot day "features" record breaking heat/record breaking cold/high winds/a protest march or something else that lays waste to  your clever schedule. 

The business of photography is, at its core, all about business. Offering products and services that clients need, want and value, and for which they will pay well. The new barriers to entry are no longer access to gear or access to start-up capital. Rather, the new barriers: are failing to understand how to incorporate new tech, new image styles and new points of view into work you want to sell to clients. How to shoot it all efficiently and how to bill for it.

There is a prevailing myth that no one is making money any more by creating and selling photography directly to clients  --- or through an ad agency or P.R. agency to clients. While it's true that anything which can be competently done with the camera in a phone will be done by the clients in house there are still enormous opportunities out there for people who keep up with the progression of technology and business practices. Our fees for creation and our usage fees for licensing have never been higher or met with less resistance. 

It's no longer enough to show up with an 11x14 inch printed portfolio of black and white images you did 20 years ago to try and secure a job. Nobody really cares about that. They want to see absolutely current work and they want to see it right now, and on their phones. Nobody is looking for your printed invoice to come in the snail mail. They want a digital invoice now and a way to instantly pay for your services with a corporate credit card. 

I had lunch this last Wednesday with an art director  who I have worked with on hundreds of assignments over the last 30+ years. We were sitting in a new restaurant here and he asked me to excuse him if he got a text. He was art directing a food shoot with a photographer in Houston, Texas who specializes in photographing seafood dishes in his well equipped studio. We ate our appetizers and he got a text with an attached test image on it. We looked at the image and bounced a few small suggestions back and forth before my art director friend sent the photographer some quick feedback. This happened several times more during lunch and by the time we left the art director felt like the food shoot a couple hundred miles away was going well. No need for travel. No need to wait around for approvals. 

Everything moves faster now. Everything changes now. Faster and faster. 

We don't buy the latest cameras just because they are pretty, we buy them because they have features we value which make the work faster, more efficient, easier to work with in post. 

And we're not buying into the idea that no one wants to pay good money anymore for good photography. In fact, we raise our prices by 7-10% per year and I will say that I've had zero push back on prices this entire year. Everyone gets that there's inflation. The clients charge their clients more. They expect the same from us. 

Sure. If you want to take your Nikon FM out and shoot some office buildings with a 28mm lens and some color film, and then delivery machine prints from a warehouse store you are probably going to have big problems being taken seriously or being paid much of anything. And if you are inordinately slow because you've refused to adopt technology or advanced training in necessary processes you'll probably never be invited back to work with clients who endured your painfully slow processes again. 

I've said it a thousand times. Photography is like staying in shape for swimming. You can't go months or years without regular swim practices and expect to do much more than not drown. You can't go months or years without practicing the craft of photography and expect to do much more than waste everyone's time. The more you practice the better you get ---- if you practice the things that add value. For the client. 

My list would be: Use the right camera. If you need lots of dynamic range, the best image stabilization and class leading low noise at higher ISO settings you'll need to spend accordingly -- or suffer from painfully involved file salvation in post processing. You'll need the right lenses for your work. If you are an architectural photography, for example, you'll need lenses that are wide enough to give you some room for perspective control in post. You'll need lenses that are sharp all the way into the corners because clients want the corner details to be just as sharp as the center of frame details. If you need lights you need lights that are fast to set up, highly reliable and easy to control. A couple of Vivitar 283 flashes just won't cut it. And you need to have researched your field to understand what the clients who practice in it want from your engagement. They are not paying to subsidize your guess work. 

But you also have to stay culturally current. Constantly researching great work on the web. Embracing current movies, music, art and social structures. Being able to speak to people without showcasing anachronistic tells. Not playing too much Frank Sinatra at your contemporary fashion shoot...

My list of important stuff would include money spent on liability insurance. And a targeted web presence. And apps that make it easy to get paid. And a professional attitude. And lots and lots of ongoing training.

In the "old days" we'd redo botched shoots if we needed to and that might make the clients of that period happy again. Now with deadlines measured in hours instead of days it's more and more critical not to fail in the first place. Some clients have their backs against the wall and there's no margin for re-dos. No time.

I had coffee last Monday with a 62 year old event photographer. He's right up to speed. His latest client wanted images from on-stage speaker presentations as the speaker was still on stage speaking. He set up a connection between his camera and his phone that allowed for immediate transfers of the files he was shooting from camera to phone which he could them directly send to the client's marcom staff via the venue's high speed wi-fi. Result? Happy client who was posting to social media before the presenters even left the stage. No time spent diddling around with inconsequential edits or stumbling blocks. Happy clients pay quickly and then invite you back again for another round. 

Most of my clients are half my age. Most of them are up to speed on what can be done with A.I. tech and the latest tools in the Adobe Suite. Most of them grew up with constant phone access. Telling them how we used to do it in the old days is a ticket to irrelevance. And lost opportunity. 

If you aren't constantly learning you aren't running in place --- you are going backwards. 

Move fast. Don't break things. Don't look backwards. Staying current is staying profitable. 

Revisiting the VSL blog. Some notes. 2024 has been an interesting year.

I put this blog on hold back in July but the last five months seems like so much longer a time. I thought at that point that I'd said everything I had to say about photography and thought, perhaps, that it would spur other formerly interesting bloggers to renew their enthusiasm and provide me (and everyone else) with some new, good content. Something fun to read between appointments or while waiting for the sun to get in just the right position. But no. I fear most photo bloggers are just aging out, have lost their spark and are just settling in to doing the only thing they really ever mastered. Writing about writing.

It would be easy to blame it all on the camera companies for not coming out with marvelous new "treasures" every quarter. The equipment reviews are so much easier to write...  But many writers have just thrown up their hands and walked away. Mostly because the advertising revenues are drying up. The ones who remain seem to think that now is the time just for reminiscing. Gliding into oblivion while rummaging around in their closet of memories looking for a cozy cardigan, woven together with vignettes of the past, to keep them company while rocking in a favorite chair during the short, dark afternoons. 

Can some writing, no matter how detailed and punctilious, be well described as...sedentary? I imagine so. 

I was buying into the story that photography as it was meant to be practiced was in hastening decline. But then I took the cure. What is the cure? Suiting up in your favorite casual clothes, tying those walking shoes with double knots so they don't come loose just as something exciting happens in front of you, grabbing a well worn and favorite camera with a sparky lens on the front and heading out the door to walk the urban streets and see what's new. And on so many of those walks I encountered... real photographers. Not just keyboard jockeys writing multiple theses about those "golden years" but vibrant, young, old, and mostly enthusiastic practitioners who were just out for joyous walks in the real world. Well, as much as you could call Austin, Texas the real world. 

So, I've spent the last five months not hunched over a keyboard and not occasionally having to toss out nasty anonymous comments from one particular person who has made it his new working from his parents' basement job to tell me I'm an asshole. It's been refreshing. 

Here I'll make a somewhat sad confession. I missed two things in the five month hiatus. One was good written content specifically about photography, taking photographs and playing with photographs. There is so little out there that I sheepishly, from time to time, took a break from endless YouTube scrolling to go back and read my own work from years or even a decade ago. And some of it was good. At least I thought so. The second thing I missed was the straightforward process of writing. Of sitting down at my office desk and "talking" to my vast collection of friends, peers, colleagues and strangers who used to come by this blog to agree, disagree, preach at me about manners, and generally supply mostly altruistic give and take. My fingers missed caressing the keyboard. I am in the process, here, of warming up the fingers and reacquainting them with the pleasures of typing with gusto. Most of all though, I missed the regular and well considered comments all these friends and peers left. Well, except for the aforementioned asshole...

What have I been up to? Mostly the same old stuff. Driving the new staff car around to little Texas towns to catalog their hurried transition into new bedroom communities. Working with the same clients I've written about over the years. Billing outrageous amounts. Spending most of it on new toys. Trying my best to understand investing and it's scary opposite, withdrawing my own money and spending it. Which is actually kind of fun.

Have I wholesale switched camera systems? Naw. Still soldiering on with the two Leica systems. One new camera has been added to the mix but also a current Leica model. So, I've been using one brand of cameras almost exclusively since 2020. It's a record of consistency in camera ownership for me. I thought I'd chaff at sticking with a routine --- but no. It's fun to lean on the familiarity of the cameras and menus when you might enjoy turning off parts of your brain and just using your gear via muscle memory.

I've come back online here (my intention is to be more sporadic than in the past) to talk about a few things that I, as a photographer, am grappling with. One is the glide into irrelevance that I think we all experience once we've logged enough years and lived through so many revolutions in our practice; our profession. Another theme is how to maximize the fun of photography in an age of distractions and the utter diffusion of individual work into the ever-widening arena of shared images. 

If you believe the propaganda from most hobbyists, bloggers, V-loggers, pundits, for profit photo websites, etc. You would think the entire world of photographers is hellbent on discarding all of their traditional, big tech cameras and rushing to buy the digital equivalent of point and shoot cameras as represented by popular models from the 1990s film days. A mad rush toward Ricoh GR111 variants and the ever elusive Fuji X100VIs. In the retro film space that would be a gold rush to find Contax, Nikon, Olympus and Canon point and shoot film eaters from the same time period. 

I won't be writing nice stuff. I won't spend much time here digging into the past. All we have and all we are able to work with is NOW. The past is gone. The future is not promised to anyone. Now is the only thing that really interests me. I don't care if you used to be the president of your high school chess club or if you made 10,000 8x10 inch prints of something in your old black and white darkroom. Tell me what you are interested in right now. Show me. Archiving is something to get around to after you are dead. 

One thing I'm really not tolerant of this time around is the idea that everything is too expensive. It is and it's not. If you are here and you have the time to read blogs about photography and other hobbies you are probably not a paycheck to paycheck working person anymore. You may think new cameras are expensive but you might also have just spent $50K on a new car without blinking. It's all about perspective. Not the skewed perspective of keystoning buildings and tilted walls but with priorities about what to spend money on. Let's not dwell on price here. Let's burrow down to the actual gear and not the perils of acquiring it. I think if you've made it to a certain age you might have more fun just saying, "Fuck it. I'll buy what I want." and be done with it. Life is too short to pinch all the pennies till they scream. 

I'm writing this blog as much for me as I am for you. I don't charge anything to you. There is no firewall.  No affiliate links to manipulate your buying business. No Patreon begging. But on the flip side I won't tolerate much nasty or uniformed feedback. Just sayin'

Hope life is treating you well. More mannequins and more tipping over high rise buildings to come...

But circling back to the current cameras markets... if you talk to working professionals and people who do photography as a real art, with a profit intention attached, you'll find that full frame and medium format, current, interchangeable lens cameras are still the mainstay. The world at large is actually filled with endless Sony A7, A-something variations along with Nikon full frame Z models and (hard to keep up with model designations) Canon full frame cameras. The one brand that consistently sells out of everything they bring to market? Well, statistically, that would be the Leica M, Q and SL cameras. Just try snagging a new model of your choice at any certified retailer's shop. Or online. I'm beginning to think they invented "the waiting list." And mostly you'll find that the good photographers are still working and making money. Weird, huh?

I spent a lot of time over the past five months working with and trying to play with the Fuji S50ii medium format cameras and a drawer that's filling up quickly with adapted Pentax 645 lenses as well as the occasional GFX lens. I've used the MF cameras on five or six daylong commercial assignments, mostly doing environmental portraits and I have to say that I much prefer working with the Leica SL variants for most jobs. The Fuji menus are a mess. The operational handling is profoundly middle brow. And worst of all, if you have the camera in direct sunlight and the temperatures are higher than 85° Fahrenheit you WILL get a temperature warning followed in short order by a complete camera shut down. Not a good thing in a "professional" tool. Added to that is battery life that makes most other cameras look competent in their power handling performance. 

If I get around to it I'd like to write about the differences in handling, and also end results, between the Leica SL,  the SL2 and the SL2-S. All different from each other but all the best but in all different ways. 

I'm still swimming every day. I walk a few miles most days. I have no medical issues. And I am happy.

Hope the same for you. 

 

Random display of images from today's walk with a Leica SL, a Voigtlander 40mm f1.4 VM and a black and white (mostly) setting... A pop-up post.

 

Proving that not all images are better done in black and white.

Bee Sanctuary.

Upbeat park decor for the kids...

This rich assortment of plants is all artificial. Plastic. Fake.

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