A much needed walk with a fun lens. The Sigma 50mm f1.4 Art(sy) lens. And some ratty, old Nikon body.

I enjoyed my commercial photography project last week. Three full days of making fun photographs at a school, followed by two packed days of really intense post processing. I stayed busy over the weekend with a marketing project, two great swim practices and a lot of book reading. By the end of the workday today I was ready for a little break from the business of photography so I grabbed some toys and headed out to pursue my long overlooked hobby ---- photography. 

As a balance to my recent, near worship of the somewhat diminutive Sony RX10ii camera I chose my oldest full frame Nikon, the D610, with a battery grip attached, and the densest lens I own; the Sigma 50mm 1.4 Art lens. My primary intention was a brisk and meandering walk through the ever-changing downtown area and my secondary pursuit was to grab a few frames with the 50mm to see some apparent indication of optical quality and thereby help me justify its thousand dollar price tag. 

My walk was successful. The combination of tools (both bought used) cost me about $1700 and holds up well. I was considering jumping on the recent medium format bandwagon but realized that for about $48,000 more dollars I might (might!) get about 3-5% more usable, handheld quality out of the investment. An investment that will dive down in value faster than thirty feet per second, per second.

My eyes may be getting old and tainted by years of compromise but frankly I'm not sure I would see much of a difference between the latest cropped frame medium format camera and the mundane Nikon full framer when we post their respective images on our websites at 2100 pixels wide.... But I sure would miss the money and the opportunity loss...

So, cool (used) lens+recent (and still pretty cool) camera = happiness x 2

You can click on these images if you want to see them bigger....

A link to my Studio Portrait Lighting Class with $25 Off.

Food Photography. by Andrew Scriviani

Off Camera Flash Photography. by Neil van Niekirk

One of the original Craftsy Photo Classes and 

still one of the best! 

Night Photography. by Lance Keimig

I met Lance a couple of weeks ago in Denver

and found him to be really fun and knowledgeable 

this class reflects what he teaches in hands-on

workshops in Ireland and Iceland, as well as 

cool places around the U.S.

Narrative Photography: Storytelling with Photo

Essays. by Mike Hill.

How to make what we shoot into a cohesive

train of visual thought.

Perfecting Photoshop Portraits. by Lesa Snider

Every once in a while I find a post I've written years ago recirculating on the web. I always want to score how well I prognosticated...

https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2014/05/terminal-ubiquity-when-everyone-offers.html?showComment=1399543931722

Read this one and let me know how I did.....

Take a class: Become more skilled and knowledgable. Have more fun.

A link to my Studio Portrait Lighting Class with $25 Off.

Food Photography. by Andrew Scriviani

Off Camera Flash Photography. by Neil van Niekirk

One of the original Craftsy Photo Classes and 

still one of the best! 

Night Photography. by Lance Keimig

I met Lance a couple of weeks ago in Denver

and found him to be really fun and knowledgeable 

this class reflects what he teaches in hands-on

workshops in Ireland and Iceland, as well as 

cool places around the U.S.

Narrative Photography: Storytelling with Photo

Essays. by Mike Hill.

How to make what we shoot into a cohesive

train of visual thought.

Perfecting Photoshop Portraits. by Lesa Snider

There is a scene....

...at the very end of Federico Fellini's masterpiece movie, "La Dolce Vita" in which Marcello Mastroianni, having been up all night drinking and carousing with his friends, is down on a beach, walking along in his dinner jacket. He looks across a small inlet and sees a young, blonde girl. It is the same girl he met on a sunny afternoon at a small, beachside cafe. She was setting tables and listening to music on the radio while Mastroianni tried to write on a mechanical typewriter.

In the final scene the young girl looks at him across the inlet and the camera zooms in to show her in a head and shoulders close up. Her expression is very similar to the expression on the woman in my photograph above.

For years the expression above seemed familiar to me but I couldn't place it. It was like a reverberation or echo of an older memory.

When I saw La Dolce Vita again, recently, the connection

RPS LED Lights Assembled in preparation for Tuesday's still life assignment.

A small forest of LED lights brought together for an upcoming assignment. 

The mythology of photography as it appears on the web would have everyone believe that working photographers are wedded to their flash equipment to the exclusion of any other type of lighting gear. And, of course, the common "knowledge" of the web would be wrong yet again. Not all of us are on an endless search for TTL flash triggers that can control monolights or smaller battery powered flashes from a hundred yards away. Not all of us spend every photographic moment worrying about high speed sync or flash duration. Some of us actually want to have as much control over the nature of the light we use as we can get. 

I am prepping my studio for an assignment we'll be undertaking on Tues. Sunday is a great day to clean up, sweep and tidy since the phone isn't ringing and there isn't a growing queue of texts to which I should respond. It's also enough lead time to really think about how I will want to light the products the client brings along and also the best lights with which to work. 

I'll be shooting medical products that will, for the most part, be positioned on mannequins, but will also be photographing some prosthetics and even a wheel chair or two. All will be photographed on a white background but, joyously, the client's

Jennifer. Triathlete. Mamiya 6 Camera.

 Jennifer on the Greenbelt. 

Someone recently asked me how to source models for personal photo projects. There are a number of ways. You could be rich and offer people lots of money to pose for you, or you could actively participate in things you are genuinely interested in and, over time, become friends with the people around you. Then you can ask your friends to pose for you. 

Jennifer is a triathlete. Our intersection is swimming. Over time she became a close friend of our family and, for a while, looked after Ben from time to time. Asking her to go to the Greenbelt for a photo session was as natural as asking a good friend out for coffee. The more genuine and authentic the relationship the more fun you will have, and the more interesting your photographs might be.

A link to my Studio Portrait Lighting Class with $25 Off.

Food Photography. by Andrew Scriviani

Off Camera Flash Photography. by Neil van Niekirk

One of the original Craftsy Photo Classes and 

still one of the best! 

Night Photography. by Lance Keimig

I met Lance a couple of weeks ago in Denver

and found him to be really fun and knowledgeable 

this class reflects what he teaches in hands-on

workshops in Ireland and Iceland, as well as 

cool places around the U.S.

Narrative Photography: Storytelling with Photo

Essays. by Mike Hill.

How to make what we shoot into a cohesive

train of visual thought.

"You should date your cameras but you should marry your lenses." A quote often attributed to photographer, David Hobby.

As long as you stay within in a single camera system it makes some sense to buy the very best lenses you can afford and think of the camera bodies as disposables. Just about every camera maker out there makes some very good lenses and some camera makers also churn out some boring, mediocre lenses as well. If you are going to go to all the trouble to set up appointments, recruit helpers or models and spend time making photographs you might consider making careful lens selections, with the idea that you may be keeping your lenses for a very long time. Even if

Are you rushing through life doing what makes you happy and fulfilled?

Life in a rush. 

The Rome Termini Station. 

Lately I seem to have come across a bevy of 55-63 year old men who are having some regrets about the trajectory of their lives. They are affluent, well educated and have spent the last twenty-five to thirty-five years of their lives pursuing safe, secure and financially rewarding careers in jobs that they essentially find boring and mundane. Routine is another word that often comes up in conversation. 

They would like to have been photographers, writers or film makers. They made a different choice and now they are confronting the realization that they missed the right opportunity to jump off the train before it got up to speed and made jumping unsafe; even dangerous. 

In most cases their kids are grown and they have put away enough money to survive for the rest of their lives. But in the course of having real careers they have also come to crave not only the security of a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly job but also the money that comes attached to the deal. 

While they might take a leap into the unknown and leave work to pursue their life long passions most will chaff at the idea of not "retiring well" and will keep working until they burn out entirely or retire for health issues. Shot knees. Bad backs. High blood pressure. Exhaustion. 

I'd like to be able to make some little homily to make it all seem like a worthy and elegant trade-off but I can't and I won't. Everyone gets to make their choice. Everyone has to live with their choices. And the grass always seems greener on the other side. 

I've tried to have it both ways but that doesn't really work either. 

At some point you move in one direction or the other. For the artist it always seems too late to change gears and find a way to quickly make enough money to offset the perilous and ill paying journey of a life time of experimentation and risk taking before old age sets in with a vengeance. Poor artists. 

On the other hand the late 50's seems too late to leave the routine of a job and paycheck behind in order to embrace the uncertainty of an artistic calling that seems ever aimed at youngsters and madmen. Could you give up the Mercedes in the driveway and the charge cards for the spouse? Are you willing to be considered "eccentric" by society in general?

I have advice for you if you are younger and on the cusp of making these sorts of life altering choices. Don't believe that security trumps excitement, passion, power and purpose. If nothing else, accepting the challenge of doing your own art on your terms will give you stories to tell long after the rest of the nursing home residents have taken their medications and fallen into a fitful sleep. Waking from time to time to regret that life was short and they traded the spice for pablum. 

I know a film maker who is constantly on the edge of financial dissolution but he's making his work and plying his craft and he's still having a blast at 55. His credo? "I'll do this right up until the day I die!" What employee would say the same thing about their job?

It's not too late to save yourself. Drop the spreadsheets into the trash can on your way out the door, grab your camera (or pen or paintbrush) and live. Everything else is peppered with regret.

Why have I written this? Because I've been on the other side of the table having coffee with at least a dozen different people in my age cohort who agonize over their choices and include me in their introspective conversation. What can I offer with authenticity but my own journey?

And no, it does not matter which brand of camera you pick up....