I have a lot of cameras; at last count I have about a dozen, and seven have interchangeable lenes with six different lens mounts. But I only have two lenses – maybe three at the very most.
In four of the six systems that I use, a short telephoto in the 85-105mm range is my primary lens, although most of the time I also have one in the standard-wide 35-40mm range as well. In the other two formats I favour a lens in the 35-40mm range, but I have short telephotos for them as well. Technically, yes, it actually works out to being about eighteen different lenses, but fifteen of them are primes that fall into those two narrow bands.
Today I was reading about the latest American Mars rover that's recently been launched to explore our neighbour. It carries two cameras, both equipped with prime lenses. One is a 34mm wide angle, and the other is a 100mm short telephoto. Smart people, NASA.
Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.
2011-12-19
2011-12-10
Taking Control
I've been thinking a lot about control recently. If there's one thing that I've never been accused of, it's being too whimsical – I usually hear words like "precise" or "clinical", and they're not always meant as a compliment. This is, perhaps, why I'm more inclined to photograph products than portraits: fine detail and small adjustments in pursuit of my vision comes more naturally than spontaneity and improvisation.
Digital cameras suit me perfectly. The "Lakefill" images that I photographed over the summer, and are nearing completion as a folio and prints now, were taken with some moderately high-end digital gear and is almost certainly the best of my personal work. It's clean, crisp, and detailed.
But over the past couple of years I've been building up a collection of film cameras. My relationship with film is very different from digital; while I'm one of those photographers who doesn't look to fundamentally change an image in post-prcessing, with film I'm willing to accept "character" and imperfections that I would never tolerate from a digital camera. Not that I don't seek perfection in the equipment that I use to begin with – my winter and spring trips to Coney Island were done with a Hasselblad and a Zeiss rangefinder and lenses – but seeing the negative as a physical thing gives a certain authority to their initial state that all-digital capture lacks.
The series that I've been working with most recently is taking that even farther. Instead of trying to exercise control over every part of the image, my approach has been to set up certain conditions and then guide the process. Taken with a film camera, these are long exposures that are zone focused and taken without being able to look through the viewfinder. Instead of overlaying a texture in Photoshop, I scratch the negatives themselves before scanning. It's only after that final physical step that I can see what the results look like.
Once these negatives have been scanned it becomes a cycle of curating and editing. To date I've gone through almost ninety different derivations from thirty original images, and have sifted out three photos that please me. The series is still young, so I may find more in the photos that I already have, and I'll certainly be creating more raw material over the coming months. But the key component of creating the situation, guiding the process, and then letting success happen – or not – of its own accord will remain unchanged.
I can't say that I'm willing to completely remove control. My version of spontaneous photography is still well-planned and far from impulsive. The basis for my abstract photography remains consistent and repeatable even as the images themselves are the product of serendipity. What can I say? I'm a product photographer at heart.
Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.
Digital cameras suit me perfectly. The "Lakefill" images that I photographed over the summer, and are nearing completion as a folio and prints now, were taken with some moderately high-end digital gear and is almost certainly the best of my personal work. It's clean, crisp, and detailed.
But over the past couple of years I've been building up a collection of film cameras. My relationship with film is very different from digital; while I'm one of those photographers who doesn't look to fundamentally change an image in post-prcessing, with film I'm willing to accept "character" and imperfections that I would never tolerate from a digital camera. Not that I don't seek perfection in the equipment that I use to begin with – my winter and spring trips to Coney Island were done with a Hasselblad and a Zeiss rangefinder and lenses – but seeing the negative as a physical thing gives a certain authority to their initial state that all-digital capture lacks.
The series that I've been working with most recently is taking that even farther. Instead of trying to exercise control over every part of the image, my approach has been to set up certain conditions and then guide the process. Taken with a film camera, these are long exposures that are zone focused and taken without being able to look through the viewfinder. Instead of overlaying a texture in Photoshop, I scratch the negatives themselves before scanning. It's only after that final physical step that I can see what the results look like.
Once these negatives have been scanned it becomes a cycle of curating and editing. To date I've gone through almost ninety different derivations from thirty original images, and have sifted out three photos that please me. The series is still young, so I may find more in the photos that I already have, and I'll certainly be creating more raw material over the coming months. But the key component of creating the situation, guiding the process, and then letting success happen – or not – of its own accord will remain unchanged.
I can't say that I'm willing to completely remove control. My version of spontaneous photography is still well-planned and far from impulsive. The basis for my abstract photography remains consistent and repeatable even as the images themselves are the product of serendipity. What can I say? I'm a product photographer at heart.
Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.
2011-11-28
A Note on Prints
Limited edition photographs are a fiction.
I don't mean that in the sense that all photographs are an imposition of the photographer's will on reality, I mean that there is nothing inherently scarce about something that is mechanically reproduced, and any limits on supply – at least durning the artists lifetime – are contrived.
I do not, and will not, produce "Limited Edition" prints.
I create artist-signed photographs in small print runs. The quantity of each run will be stated at the beginning, and the price for those prints is fixed. When that run of prints has sold out, I may then offer an additional run, but the price will be approximately fifty percent higher with each edition. This way my photographs remain accessible, popular prints go up in value for those who collect them, and I'm able to incorporate improvements in the process in a way that's fair to both current and future owners.
I do also offer photographs through print-on-demand services. These prints are not produced under my control, and I neither inspect nor sign them, so they are offered on an ongoing basis at a lower price. Finally, from time to time there may even be "special editions" that I print and sell under different conditions, but as exceptions these will always be distinct from my print edition photographs in some way.
Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.
I don't mean that in the sense that all photographs are an imposition of the photographer's will on reality, I mean that there is nothing inherently scarce about something that is mechanically reproduced, and any limits on supply – at least durning the artists lifetime – are contrived.
I do not, and will not, produce "Limited Edition" prints.
I create artist-signed photographs in small print runs. The quantity of each run will be stated at the beginning, and the price for those prints is fixed. When that run of prints has sold out, I may then offer an additional run, but the price will be approximately fifty percent higher with each edition. This way my photographs remain accessible, popular prints go up in value for those who collect them, and I'm able to incorporate improvements in the process in a way that's fair to both current and future owners.
I do also offer photographs through print-on-demand services. These prints are not produced under my control, and I neither inspect nor sign them, so they are offered on an ongoing basis at a lower price. Finally, from time to time there may even be "special editions" that I print and sell under different conditions, but as exceptions these will always be distinct from my print edition photographs in some way.
Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.
2011-11-23
Rule of Third
It's November, so it must be time to redo my website.
Welcome to the third redesign of matthewpiers.com. I've done away with the gallery-style website that most photographers use, but then I've never been overly concerned with doing what other photographers like to do. It's time to branch out and bring a little more personality to the process.
So the Matthew Piers Photography website – I'd like to thank my mother for giving me an unusual middle name – is relaunching as a blog and expanding its scope. Photography is going to always be central to its content, as it's central to my life, but this will no longer be just a wordless repository for photos.
For convenience I plan on using a few categories to sort the different themes. "Articles" are the more technical or introspective essays that don't relate directly to an image. The "Commercial" tag is reserved for photos that I take for someone else, and the thoughts that go along with them. "Personal" is for my own work, whether it's a few random thoughts, a photo, or notes on a project; posts that include photos will also be tagged accordingly. Finally, "Prints" will tag any artwork that I have for sale. Very few images will make it through the filters to reach this stage, so I tend to be fond of it.
More to come.
Welcome to the third redesign of matthewpiers.com. I've done away with the gallery-style website that most photographers use, but then I've never been overly concerned with doing what other photographers like to do. It's time to branch out and bring a little more personality to the process.
So the Matthew Piers Photography website – I'd like to thank my mother for giving me an unusual middle name – is relaunching as a blog and expanding its scope. Photography is going to always be central to its content, as it's central to my life, but this will no longer be just a wordless repository for photos.
For convenience I plan on using a few categories to sort the different themes. "Articles" are the more technical or introspective essays that don't relate directly to an image. The "Commercial" tag is reserved for photos that I take for someone else, and the thoughts that go along with them. "Personal" is for my own work, whether it's a few random thoughts, a photo, or notes on a project; posts that include photos will also be tagged accordingly. Finally, "Prints" will tag any artwork that I have for sale. Very few images will make it through the filters to reach this stage, so I tend to be fond of it.
More to come.
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