25 Apr Talk To Me, Sam
And use the big words...
Blog
22 Apr Never Look Over Your Shoulder
That shows fear. And don't look over the shoulder of anyone else - that's nosiness. But what can a photographer do, when everything bad that they have ever done is lurking behind them? And everything that someone else is doing looks good and is in front of them all day? Whence cometh tranquillity and whither doth it go? I promise not to use cometh or doth again - but I had to do it at some time in my writing career. It was either doth or death. Well, let's get back to gettin' back that photographic tranquillity. We may need it to force ourselves into the studio tomorrow morning or to the camera club on a Monday night. If we find ourselves feeling a little anxious on either score there are things we can reflect upon: a. Whatever we learned in basic photography, we learned from someone else - either through book learning or practical demonstration. If it was crude stuff, we were learners, and no apprentice's work is that of the master to start with. I can look through my negatives and find fingerprints...
21 Apr They No Lie
They Tell Truth. Truth hurt, but still truth. The honest fellows I refer to are Chris Lee from the pal2tech YouTube site and Omar Gonzalez from Omar Gonzalez Photography - also on YouTube. I tune into their broadcasts every week and have benefited greatly. I still don't know how to like and subscribe but I do know how to recognise good presenters. Over the months that I have been reviewing their shows they have repeatedly mentioned one point in respect to video presentations; the audio component is more important than the visual one. The nature of their internet entertainment being what it is, they can directly demonstrate this as you watch and listen. In the case of Chris Lee, he does gear reviews based around his own intimate knowledge of the Fujifilm system, and adds some of the peripherals of video production - the lights, cables and microphones - from time to time. Firms send him gear for review and he buys some of his own stuff, but all his opinions are his own, and he makes no bones about saying that. Recently he...
18 Apr On Or Off, In Or Out…
Make up your darned mind. Those of you with children or cats who stand in the doorway will now exactly where the title of this post comes from. But it is also a muttered undertone for a lot of photographers - and that included me over the weekend. I'd taken a Fujifilm X-E2 camera along to the in-laws for Saturday luncheon and was intending to take some group pictures. It was even attached to the little Sirui tabletop tripod I use for reportage at shop open nights. Beautiful combination - but only when there is electricity in the battery to work it. There was electricity in the battery when I put it into the bag at home - but it had all run out and run away by the time I got to Mandurah. The wretched on/off switch had been activated as I loaded it and the camera was switched on the whole trip. The first indication that something was wrong was the fact that it was red-hot inside the bag - and the little red dead-battery icon confirmed it. The lunch was...
15 Apr The Most Successful Photographer In Perth
Is whom? What name springs to mind? Is it a name you don't know? Is it your own name? Drawn to this by a supposed quote from Billy Connolly that said he measured success for himself by the amount of time in a week when he could do what Billy Connolly wanted to do. I find myself suspecting any quote or meme that reaches me on social media - since many of them are constructs and mis-attributions designed to push a political message. But I rather like the idea expressed with this one. If it really was the Big Yin who said it, thank you. So who IS the most successful? If it is a question that revolves around money earned, you'd have to be guided by the ATO. The banks won't reveal who has the most in their accounts - unless you're emailing as a Nigerian lawyer with the legacy of a prince to distribute. The photographers themselves won't say, and even if they get together in a conference, numbers mentioned are likely to be imaginary. No-one likes to tell real...
13 Apr It Must Be Your Eyes…
Because it probably isn't mine. The writer of this column is looking alternately at a keyboard and an iMac screen. Peering would be a better word, and it is being done around a number of internal barriers in his eyes. Floating bodies, cataracts, and what have you. Plain sheets of paper are starting to look like ordnance survey maps. The time is coming when something will need to be done. I bring this up because the fate of your hard-won traditional photographic print - the one that you started growing months ago when you hauled out the old SLR camera and which you have nurtured lovingly through so many tanks, trays, and chemicals - depends on the eyes that see it. And upon the way they do. a. The eyes that see it may be a wonky as mine. If someone criticises your picture for a technical fault that you are sure does not exist, suspect the final two lenses through which it is perceived. Do not get annoyed and be tempted to poke a finger in there. Beauty is in the eye of...
11 Apr How Flat Is Your Screen?
If it's like my computer screen, pretty darn flat. The same applies to the EIZO monitors that Camera Electronic sells - wonderfully professional display devices that are far more accurate that the eyes that peer into them. Even if you are off, the EIZO's are on. But what about the results from your newly printed analogue image? The wonderfully retro art that the new film shooter has been able to produce in only a week? What does it look like? Well, if the neg or slide went into a professional lab and came out as a RA-4 or inkjet print - pretty darn flat as well. Ditto if the photographer did it at home through the scan-compute-inkjet route. Prints from the output tray of my Epson R3000 printer on Epson or Ilford papers come out nearly as flat as the paper that went in the feed slot. The addition of ink makes for a little buckling, but this gasses off and dries out and the final prints are dead flat again. Note that I always store my printing paper in its original package, flat,...
08 Apr Purchasing An Instrument
Have you ever gone into a shop or showroom and purchased an instrument? It felt like an important moment, didn't it? It could have been a musical instrument - your first guitar. A wind instrument. A Bechstein grand piano for the porch on the beach house at Dunsborough...
06 Apr Is It Store Or Shop?
Is Camera Electronic a store or a shop? Yes. Both. Two shops that store all sorts of photographic gear and shop staff that store all sorts of photographic knowledge. Even the writer of the shop weblog column knows how many beans make five. It's six, but you can go onto your computer and claim a bean-back...
04 Apr Getting To See The Picture
And a big picture at that. Newbie, you are not so new as before. You went through the entire process of buying film, loading it, taking pictures with it, and developing it. You have a black and white negative in a plastic sleeve or paper envelope - not in a hot and sweaty hand, thank you. That negative is a precious thing, and, unlike a digital file, can be irreparably marred if you put fingerprints on it. Those plastic sleeves that CE sells are there for a purpose. How do you go from the neg to a positive picture? Three ways: a. Take the negative sleeve to the professional laboratory and ask for prints of the pictures. You can have them in many sizes, but remember that the traditional photographic sizes are still running in Imperial measures. This you may get a 4" x 6", a 5" x 7", an 8" x 10" an so on. Photographers are dinosaurs, really, but take some comfort from the numbers. If they start asking you whether you want half-plate or cabinet size you'll know they are...