One of the most important rules I learned for photography is this: don't make two things the same size.
I don't mean compositionally – I'm a huge fan of symmetry, balance, and repetition. No, I mean this in the most literal and physical way possible.
If I need to cut down some foam-core to make a reflector, I won't just divide it in half, because then when I need a card that's larger or smaller I have no options. A sixty-forty split means that one of them is bound to be right for the job, including many of the jobs that I haven't even thought of yet.
Two tripods with the same height and weight capacity aren't nearly as useful as a light one and a heavy one. Having a camera that can fit in a pocket and another that needs its own backpack – and a half-dozen different ones in between – is an essential part of my creative toolkit that just can't be replaced by having a single allegiance to a brand or lens mount.
If things are different, one of them could be perfect, and with a creative endeavour there's really no way to know ahead of time which one it will be. If everything's the same size, there's an excellent chance that nothing will be the right fit.
Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.
2012-06-26
2012-06-18
Hard Work
Ultimately, taking a good photograph isn't the problem.
That's not saying that taking a good photograph is easy; if it was then I'd always do it, which I clearly do not. But success depends on failures, and if an artist fails often enough, and creatively enough, then success is inevitable.
The problem is recognizing a good photo when I see it.
I used to think that good photography was about the things that were photographed. Then I thought it was about light, or form, or tone, colour, line, pattern; I even briefly considered the idea that it was about intangibles like stories or emotion. But that's not right, or at least, it's not enough.
Good photography is about knowing what a good photograph looks like.
It's editing, selecting, and discarding. It's the visual sophistication and discernment to recognize what has value. It's the discipline to accept that, out of my last thousand photos, maybe none of them are worth showing.
Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.
That's not saying that taking a good photograph is easy; if it was then I'd always do it, which I clearly do not. But success depends on failures, and if an artist fails often enough, and creatively enough, then success is inevitable.
The problem is recognizing a good photo when I see it.
I used to think that good photography was about the things that were photographed. Then I thought it was about light, or form, or tone, colour, line, pattern; I even briefly considered the idea that it was about intangibles like stories or emotion. But that's not right, or at least, it's not enough.
Good photography is about knowing what a good photograph looks like.
It's editing, selecting, and discarding. It's the visual sophistication and discernment to recognize what has value. It's the discipline to accept that, out of my last thousand photos, maybe none of them are worth showing.
Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.
2012-06-09
Lakefill 2011 Prints
Begun sixty years ago as a simple breakwater to protect Toronto’s Outer Harbour, the Leslie Street Spit has grown into an elaborate peninsula five kilometers long. Largely reclaimed by nature, the Spit now includes almost five square kilometers of cottonwoods, wetlands, and meadows, and is managed as one of the largest wildlife habitats in the city.
The Spit’s southern shoreline remains an active dumpsite for demolition and excavation rubble. It’s a changing landscape of construction debris: concrete poles and slabs build the headlands, tangles of weathered rebar, stone, and brick form the beaches. While they were once the buildings and structure of the city, this lakefill now creates the land itself.
Shaped and broken by machines and by the elements, very little is more humble than these bricks and scraps. Presented here without the surrounding context, they invite examination for their own character and qualities. Resolutely mute, each one still speaks to its past life and stands as a part of the history of Toronto.
Matthew Piers Robertson
June 2012
The project includes eighteen images that were taken in place on the Leslie Street Spit during August and September of 2011. Conceived as a set from the very beginning, I'm pleased to offer these as complete portfolios, including the photograph and artists' statement above, as well as as individual prints. The image area is sized for an 8x10" matt on 8.5x11" paper, and given the white field, there is some flexibility in its presentation.
As I have mentioned previously, I do not produce "Limited Edition" prints. Instead I create artist-signed photographs in small print runs. The quantity of each run and the price for those prints is fixed. When those have sold out I may print an additional run, but the price will be fifty percent higher with each edition.
The full portfolio of eighteen images, plus the title page and artists' statement page with the photo above, is priced at $600. Two sets are available in this print edition. As these images are meant to be seen unframed, they are printed on Premium Glossy paper.
The single prints are intended for framing and are printed on Premium Luster paper. The first print edition is in sets of three, and each is available for $40.
Each image is also available directly from a print-on-demand lab. These can be ordered via the gallery, and while I have every confidence in their quality, these are not images that I have inspected or approved. Printed on 8x10" paper, these unsigned and non-editioned photographs are offered at $25 each.
Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.
2012-06-03
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.
Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.
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