Verbs

One of the long-standing debates on the periphery of photography is whether a photograph is "taken" or "made". The connotations include the amount of intentionality in the act, whether it's passive or creative, and the role of authorship, among other issues, including a certain level of pretension. I cared about this for a while, before my concern about this kind of concern faded out.

So it's with a certain amount of surprise that I find my language choices changing after all these years. Increasingly I'm just skipping the word "photographed" completely. Instead I've shifted to saying "recorded" – it's device-agnostic, so it works whether I'm using a camera, scanner, or microphone. It emphasizes that the initial capture is a matter of selecting parts of the world that I want to work with later, and just the beginning of the creative process that doesn't really end until the work is finalized and published.

I haven't yet tried saying "recorded" instead of "photographed" in conversation with a photographer, but eventually I'll be brave enough.


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Worldizing

"Worldizing" is a useful audio concept.

Re-recording a sound as it's played back in an environment lets the unique acoustics and ambience of the space become a part of the new recording. It's the difference between a living sound and a sterile effect. Phones ringing in an empty classroom, a narrow hallway, or a crowded elevator all deserve their own nuance.

I think in words, so it makes sense that I see that way as well. Their meanings, combinations, placement, arrangement, style, design, and surrounding environment all fascinate me. Photographing signage is something that I've been passionate about for years – taking something utilitarian, designed for other purposes, and shaping it into something that I choose.

Using a camera as the answer to a graphic design question creates a powerful mix of limitations and options. The existing design is dramatically altered, new graphic elements are juxtaposed or overlaid, the meaning and structure of the words are subverted or removed. Shapes become prominent, dimensionality can be emphasized or flattened, and something that was once ubiquitous can be seen anew.

"Worldizing" is a useful photographic concept.


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Found Material

While I enjoy music, it's not something that I aspire to. Musicians are tremendous creative artists, akin to painters or poets who can create something that didn't exist before. My approach to sound recording and production is inherently tied to my experience as a photographer.

A photographer will typically develop a skill in seeing things that others miss. Whether it's an object or a fleeting moment, the essence of a person or the tones of a shadow on the ground, a photographer finds things that that they can hold up and show to others in a different way. The creation of a photograph is an event that gives the subject, whether banal or beautiful, a certain gravitas. "This thing has been recorded and its presentation shaped in a way to bring out what I saw, so please look as well, and appreciate the possibilities of its meaning."

A painter will create art on a blank surface.

A photographer will find art within the incidental splatter on the drop cloth.

Recording sound, and even shaping it into something different, is also the act of observing and presenting something that others might miss or dismiss. It's embracing the incidental and unintentional around us, even if it means the rhythm and richness of a rattling fan. It's about finding these things and holding them up so that others might appreciate them as well. Sound is everywhere – there's a lot to be heard by listening.


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Suitability

Black and white film confounds me.

Despite being a very digital photographer and owning some great digital cameras, black and white film inexplicably accounts for many of my favourite photos. It's such an odd situation that I occasionally find myself tempted to prowl the early-morning city streets with my rangefinder and its 35mm lens, which is absolutely not what I'm suited for. No, I like sleeping in, through-the-lens 100% viewfinders, and autofocus. I'm not a practitioner of the prevailing street photography aesthetic and ethos; I just happen to really like some photos taken with monochrome film.

I spent a day at the auto show last weekend, and if there's a Disneyland for colour, that's it. I took over 250 photos with my D800, mostly using my long macro lens, and shot 35 frames of XP2 with my F5 as a lark. Sure enough, my early favourite is from the film camera.

I honestly don't know how much I should be reading into this. Film in general, and monochrome in particular, accounts for an improbably high percentage of my better images, and yet I'm only occasionally motivated to use it. I have to decide if I'm simply picking up my film cameras when I'm already at my best, because film has a tangible cost and therefore isn't something I'll use when I'm uninspired, or if there's something deeper that I should be paying more attention to.

One thing I do know is that I'll never give up digital and colour – if nothing else, long stretches of monochrome images in my lightroom catalog depress me with their unrelenting greyness. It's the photographic equivalent of a long winter. I'm just not cut out for that.


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Left or Right

I really like this photo, and it's one of the few that I thought would work even as I was taking it. Perhaps that's why I don't have any variations on it. I wasn't planning on spending much time taking photos that day, so I was only carrying my point-and-shoot, and didn't linger.

It feels like there could be the beginning of a series here: the geometric experience of vast and deserted suburban streets. In my downtown neighbourhood it's rare to see a street this wide, and it would never be completely empty. Yet the evidence of people is irrefutable: someone built this road, and quite recently at that, and it has already seen enough traffic to wear away the markings. I find that contradiction fascinating, and at least as compelling as the opposing arrows.

I've done three different edits of this photo, starting from a clean copy of the image file each time. It's a way to take a fresh start but with the benefit of experience. This version was put through DxO Optics as well as Lightroom, with noticeably better results than working with Lightroom alone. Unfortunately for this photo, it's still not improved enough for me to be happy with it as a print. I like my little Canon S100, but it just doesn't hold up under close examination.


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Software Upgrades II

Back in February I wrote a little lament about having to upgrade my software. Well, four months later, it's time for an update.

I have indeed moved my main computer to Lightroom Four so that it can handle images from my Nikon D800. It's an awesome program, but even version 4.1 is so slow that the thought of importing more than a dozen photos into it makes we want to cry. I've left my laptop running Lightroom three-point-something, which is fine for my little Canon S100.

I'm also working my way through a trial of "DxO Optics", which is an incredibly sophisticated program that does most of its work automatically. It looks like this will become my new intake program, letting me see a better-than-original redering of each photo, use some of its tools and tricks, and then export only the best candidates to Lightroom Four. That Adobe software can then add its own controls to the mix, and remains my foundation for organizing and printing photos.

Driving all of this right now is my upcoming jaunt to New York City. On my last trip, to the same place and on the same weekend, I took about four hundred photos using my manual-focus and manual-advance film rangefinder. With my D800 I'm going to carry enough power and memory for about two thousand images – I don't need to use it all, but I don't plan on missing many opportunities. So my workflow needs to be up to the task, to say the least.

Coming up next will be my first experience with scanning film into Lightroom Four. People talk about how big the 50MB files from the D800 are, but my film scans are typically double that. Even Lightroom Three was a little hesitant with those files, so this is going to be interesting.


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Solving Dilemmas

When faced with choosing between two possible options, each with their own advantages, there's a lot to be said for doing both.

I've recently been trying to decide between wrapping up my Lakefill project, knowing that I could now do it better, versus continuing on and further delaying its completion.

So I'm doing both. I have a few little changes that I want to make to a couple of the prints, and the Artist's Statement needs some work, but I've selected a series of eighteen images that make a strong set of 8x10 prints. I'll have the gallery updated with the finished images once the full folio is complete.

And while doing that, I'm also gathering raw material for the next set. Literally. While all of the photos in "Lakefill 2011" were taken on-site, this time I'm bringing the bricks indoors. The first set was intended to be a book / folio from the very beginning; the 2012 project will be more refined, more consistent, and intended for gallery-quality 16x20" prints. I'm not ready to start photographing yet, but I'm excited.


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Measuring Matthewness

This is something that I came up with in an idle moment: the "matthewness" scale.

There are five categories that I've broken it down into, and assign anywhere from 0 to 2 point in each, creating a nice X-out-of-10 rating. The higher the score, the more "me" the photo is. (As with all of these arbitrary and subjective ratings, intermediate scores and half-points are encouraged.) Here's how it works:

Picture Space: The flatter the better. A photo with a foreground and background with deep focus, like the receding streets of 44th and 5th, would score a "0". A photo where the entire frame consists of a brick wall – not an uncommon thing for me, even outside of my lens reviews – would score "2".

Geometry: For maximum points, we need straight lines, right angles, and square corners. Diagonals are rare, and there are no curves. A score of zero would be something like a field of wildflowers – not that I've ever taken one of those. An intermediate score of "1" would go to something like "Blue", where a composition of curves is still anchored by a line that's parallel to the bottom of the frame.

Framing: A 'passive' frame, which is simply where the photo ends and has no relation to the space or the subject, is a zero. A composition in which the frame creates negative space that's important to the success of the photo, such as my Lakefill series, would be a "1". For full points, the photo needs to have a subject or composition that's entirely created by the camera frame.

Words: Sometimes text and its treatment is the entire subject of a photo, which is worth "2", and if it's important in some way then I'll score that as a "1.5". If there's any legible text, then that still earns a "1".

Suitability: Somewhat recursively, this is an evaluation of the "matthewness" of the subject. Camera-clubby images of lonely trees, lonely docks, dilapidated barns, diaphanous flowers, and long-exposure streams are an emphatic zero, if not an outright deduction. On the other hand, people occasionally remember me for my abstracted photos of signs, so that would be a "2". Humour counts for something here, too.

I previously called "Swimming Pool Vicinity" the most 'me' of all of my photos. It scores a 8.5 out of 10 on this scale, being marked down only a half-point each for 'words', 'picture space', and 'framing'. Conversely, "Coney Island, 18 June 2011" shows few of my usual traits, would only acquire one point each for 'picture space' and 'suitability', with maybe a half-point for 'framing'.

It's not that this scale has any actual utility, or that I use it in evaluating or ranking photos in any way, but it's an amusing exercise for me to pass the time and a different framework to think about my favourites.


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Retraction

I have to admit that I've done something that I had said I wouldn't do. I've bought a Nikon D800.

Improvement is a funny thing.

The tools that I use are inseparable from the results that I attain: the process of creation starts when I select the implement, and that's true whether I'm picking a camera and lens or choosing between a brush and a palette knife. Each camera provides different abilities and opportunities, and the D800's potential to make high-quality prints larger and more easily proved too tempting to resist.

Yet while a better camera may take better photos, it doesn't follow that it will create better art.

There's a huge difference between the ambitions of being a better photographer versus being a better artist. The process might look the same, but the goals are different; I occasionally need to remind myself that I want to solve expressive problems, not just technical ones. It's far too easy to get caught up in the numbers and marketing and forget that my goals may not be the same as those of the people around me, and they certainly aren't the same as the camera companies.

But 36 megapixels means a high-resolution 16x20" print without needing to combine multiple images. That's exactly what I want. My Lakefill series may not be done after all.


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"Coney Island, 18 June 2011"

I would say that things usually work out well for me. After a successful trip to Coney Island in March, and ten days in Manhattan the previous October, I had planned a return trip for the end of June. There are a lot of different things that come into play when I pick a time to travel, and this particular day just happened to be the Saturday of the annual parade in Coney Island to mark the start of summer.

It was a good day, with lots of interesting things to see. I spent the morning in Manhattan, using black and white film in my rangefinder, and then switched to colour and a telephoto lens for most of the afternoon. Despite being a smaller format than what I had used for my March trip to Coney Island, the film is the same and I like the way they work together.

I'm still not done with Coney Island yet, and may have another trip or two there this year. Eventually I'll be able to put together a series that covers different seasons across a few years. Until then, this photo will stand on its own.


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"Fifth and Forty-Fourth"

One thing that I've noticed is that my photographic interests have narrowed over the years. I used to go out and just explore, never knowing what I would find, but these days I tend to visualize a specific image and then work to make it happen. At least, that's what I do when I'm at home – when I travel I'm much more likely to be spontaneous.

Midtown Manhattan is only a ten-hour bus ride from downtown Toronto, making it a relatively easy overnight trip. That's also why I'm more likely to be on Fifth Avenue at six-thirty on the morning than to see Toronto's own Yonge Street: I need a very good reason to be awake that early. All I could think about here was making sure that I had my Zeiss 35/2 lens set to infinity and f/5.6 as I brought the camera up for this shot – that and making sure there were no oncoming taxis as I crossed the street a block south from this gentleman.

This photo was taken on my third trip to New York, and it was the second time I brought my Zeiss Ikon rangefinder. This is my perfect camera for cities and streets, especially with the Zeiss 35mm f/2 Biogon, which is possibly the best wide-angle lens ever made. This is the setup I most associate with New York, and it's one of the cameras I'll be carrying when I return this fall.


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"Coney Island Furniture"

New York City is a very big place. While it doesn't suffer from a lack of photographers, the idea of creating any single body of work that can capture the breadth of it would be a daunting task even if I lived there, which I don't. Instead I need to focus on just a few themes and restrict myself to very specific parts of the city.

"Coney Island Furniture" is, naturally, from an ongoing series of photos from Coney Island. This is an iconic area of amusement parks with a boardwalk on the Atlantic ocean that always faces the sun, and it's the terminus for four different subway lines that run through midtown Manhattan.

My first trip to it was in March of 2011, before the rides opened for the season, making it a quiet and rather cold and windy place. I carried a tripod and my hasselblad, which made for an interesting day.

This store is on Surf Avenue, not far from the beach and attractions, but seems to have enjoyed better times. I like to linger on the storefront with its signs and unusual lettering, and typically for my cityscape photos, it's built out of rectangles with no people to be seen anywhere.


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"Swimming Pool Vicinity"

There are four traits that I recognize in many, if not most, of my favourite photos. Flat picture space. Strong geometry, typically square angles and no curves. An active frame: the photograph is created by its boundaries, rather than existing independently within them. And words.

"Swimming Pool Vicinity" combines all of these elements in one image, making it the most 'typically me' photo of any of my recent work. When I look at it I see the larger sign first, followed by the second sign; then I examine the detail in the wall. The sweeping clouds are what I look at last, and their implied movement brings me back to the wall and the idea that there's something beyond it.

I suppose there is a fifth element that is typically me: detachment. I may exult in geometric expression, but the photo is an act of precision, not passion. The viewer is invited to examine the scene in detail: to count the bolts, to notice the shifts in the concrete wall, to appreciate the humour of the warnings inherent in the deep end of a shallow pool. But we're a very long way from dancing about architecture.


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Considering Favourites

I was recently asked to put together a portfolio of seven photographs for review. Setting aside the specificity of that number, and my musing about how they chose it, the part of the request that struck me is that the prints need to show a range of interests and approaches.

I've spent the past year working on cohesive series, which is sort of the opposite of that.

The ones that I've provisionally chosen – i still have a week to finalize my choices – span almost two years. Three of them were taken in New York, across two separate one-day visits, but I haven't pulled any images from my trips to Montreal, Chicago, or Ottawa.

Over the next couple of weeks I'll take a look at some of the photos that I pick. Many are already included in my personal favourites, but I've reworked several of them and am looking forward to seeing them as prints.


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Little Jumps Forward

It's been a busy week.

A couple of things have happened. One is a small breakthrough on my Time and Motion project: I've finally found an aspect ratio that I like and can use for all of the prints. Since I've been working in three different formats – and counting – each with a different aspect ratio, this is a way to unify all of the photographs. It will require custom matting, but commercially produced frames should remain an option. I'm very excited about this.

I always enjoy being able to do a first pass with my photographs, to solidify my ideas on how I want them to look, and then let them sit for a while. In every case it provides better results, and sometimes those results aren't what I expect. I idly flipped one of the photos from colour to monochrome on my computer screen, and really liked the results. Encouraged by that, I then tried it on one that came out too rough for me to like in colour. Black and white suits it, and while I'm not sure if it will be part of the "finished" series, it's fun to have in the collection.

The other new thing this week is some camera-industry news. Nikon astonished me by proving the rumour websites correct, and announced the replacement for my D700 with three times the resolution. I pay minimal attention to rumour sites, partly because I have enough trouble keeping track of the cameras that actually exist, but the idea that Nikon would definitively restart the megapixel race was just too outlandish to believe. Never let it be said that I have a perfect track record.

I'm not one of those people who expects art-viewers to maintain a respectful distance from large prints and not notice blur and pixellation: if a print is big I want to be rewarded by additional detail. Clearly, my Time and Motion project depends on mood instead of minutia, but I did go to considerable effort to increase the starting resolution for my Lakefill series. A high resolution digital camera certainly isn't something that I would say no to.

But I'm not ready to say yes to the Nikon D800, either. It's not quite right for my needs, and my D700 and I still have a few years left together, but I'm certainly interested to see what else Nikon can come up with.


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Software Upgrades

I refuse to consider that I might now qualify as an 'old dog'.

I'm not adverse to learning new things. I quite enjoy coming up with new solutions and techniques to improve my results. I just prefer change when it's my idea.

I use Adobe software as the core of my image editing routine. Lightroom handles 95% of it, while special tasks are farmed out to an older version of Photoshop. I use a specialist program to drive the two scanners for the film that I use, and a nifty little program for focus stacking and super-resolution processing with some digital images.

But nothing lasts forever. The next version of Photoshop will be my last chance to upgrade at a reduced price, and after that they're getting rid of their policy that lets people skip generations without penalty. There's nothing in the new versions that I need, but the raw files from two of the three digital cameras that I routinely use aren't supported in the version that I have. This affects my ability to easily merge multiple photos into layers or panoramas, and is generally a nuisance.

Lightroom is also changing. I've been using it longer than most people, and stayed with it through three generations. Now LR4 is in its public trials, and it looks great – but I've developed a few decent tricks in soon-to-be-old versons. My favourite was to work with the exposure and brightness controls in opposition to each other: exposure is global, and can cause highlight clipping, but brightness will try very hard not to clip, and only influences the brighter parts of the image. The contrast control works to change the range that the brightness influences. Between those adjustments an amazing range of control could be had, and it was quick and easy to create the results that I wanted.

Lightroom 4: no more brightness control.

Nobody says that I have to upgrade. I can stay with what I'm doing, keep the results I already have, and not need to do anything differently. But what fun is that?

So it's inevitable that I'm going to need to learn new tricks sooner or later. Lightroom Four is almost certainly in my future. But this also seems like a good time to re-evaluate what I want my software to do, and consider some new options that weren't out there when I first signed up with Adobe. I'm hearing interesting things about Apple's Aperture, and DxO Optics has a reputation as the best choice for photographers who want to squeeze the best from their cameras and lenses. That sounds fascinating – and they all offer free trials.

I may need a new computer soon.


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Camera Thoughts

There are a lot of recurring themes in photographic discussion, but the classic may be "the camera doesn't matter." The essential argument is that talent/skill/ability is what's important, and once that requirement is met 'all you need is a disposable, toy camera or a camera phone to create great work.'

Poppycock.

Of course technical proficiency doesn't mean that there's anything of value being created. But the assertion that great artwork can be done with inferior tools skirts the reality that artists typically use the best tools that they can. Yes, of course it can be done, but the point is to use the correct tool.

I've been learning a lot about the importance of cameras from my 'time and motion' project. The images themselves have very little detail and a limited tonal range, and certainly don't stress the equipment at all. So far I've taken these images with three different cameras, ranging from small format film and digital to medium format film, and I suppose a disposable toy camera would work as well.

But these simple photos are created from long exposures with impromptu setup, and it's the camera that's moving, not the subject. It's an unusual situation with unexpected requirements, and choosing the right camera has become an integral part of the creative process. The exposure controls, format, and even the weight of the camera change the results in subtle ways that can't always be predicted, and they certainly can't be synthesized.

But neither can meaning.


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Creative Accidents

Perfection isn't something I actually expect to achieve. I'm not that good, and I'm also aware that the drive for perfection is the antithesis of completion. But I'm someone who will take the largest SLR ever produced, which has tremendous technical controls and creates a negative larger than the screen on my phone, for a miles-long bike ride so that I can photograph bricks.

I really like perfection, but I also really like this photo.

Everything in this photo worked the way it should. It's not destined for greatness, but the process went just fine. There's plenty of detail to see in the spider webs, and while the composition isn't revolutionary, it's not bad either.

But months later – I don't use a lot of black and white film in the summer – when I was unloading the camera, there was a slight mishap. Rolls of 120 film are vulnerable to light leaks, and that's what happened to this one. It's actually the first time I've had that happen with any of my film.

In this case, I'm glad it did.
But I don't plan on doing it again.


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Subtle White

There's a photograph that I keep trying to take.

It's not even complicated. There's a large tank that holds some sort of chemical – I've never bothered to find out what – on the university campus that's near my home. It's a long horizontal cylinder, painted white, that's almost always in shadow from the neighbouring buildings. There's an elevated walkway next to it, so that it's easy to see across the top of the tank and along its length.

The tank is usually wearing rain-streaked dirt, giving it interesting detail and texture. The curve means that there are always highlights and shadows. Shade, reflections, and lights give it subtle colour variations. I'm fascinated by it, and try to take a photo most of the times I walk past it. I test out new cameras, lenses, and film with it. I've done this for years.

Completely without success.

I admit that I haven't gone all-out and made a project out of it. I could be unsporting and use the camera, lens, and colour controls that I routinely work with for my commercial photography. That would certainly give better results, yet I haven't done it. Ultimately, I know that what I like wouldn't really translate into a static photograph, and both film and digital are weak at capturing subtle variations of tone and colour.

I'm a big believer in having the right camera for the job, but there are jobs that cameras can't do.


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Two Lenses

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.


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