Rock my socks
Sunday 30 November 2008
Colour
I'm trying to wean myself off it.
It's not that I don't think it has its own special positives (and negatives), or a time and a place, I just personally find myself stopping more for black and white photos more than I do colour photos. Maybe it's because the absence colour removes some of the distraction in the image, allowing us to see what really lies at the essence of the image. By removing something which makes an image realistic, the image is being made more real to us.
Realistic and Real aren't the same thing to me. Something can be very real without being at all realistic. Real is to do with a different sort of truth than the bare facts which comprise Realistic images. Black and White is a prime example; by cutting through the distractions to just the quick of form and structure, we somehow have a distilled version of the image. If done right, this monotone image is anything but monotonous. There is something very final about an image composed of grey values, it seems to have a permanence which Colour images just don't. Colour can be tweaked and altered to a far greater extent than the colour mix in a Black and White image, which just doesn't seem quite a honest to me. Of course, photography shouldn't be about sheer honesty, but rather an interpretation, but there's a point where an interpretation just turns into a lie with little or no basis in the reality. Whilst that also has a time and a place, it reduces the extent to which the audience can truly engage with a work, which is ultimately the majority of the point of all art. (That is if you presume that art should have a point at all of course).
In my opinion colour hides a multitude of sins, and actually can make an image which is hugely flawed seem to be a good image, purely because of the punch and WOW factor of the colours. I can't see those sorts of images lasting nearly as long as the monotone prints which engage on a far deeper level. The level of composition, of form, of carefully observed detail and texture.
Black and White engages you, Colour excites you. Black and White will stand the test of time, but something makes me suspect that colour won't.
Realistic and Real aren't the same thing to me. Something can be very real without being at all realistic. Real is to do with a different sort of truth than the bare facts which comprise Realistic images. Black and White is a prime example; by cutting through the distractions to just the quick of form and structure, we somehow have a distilled version of the image. If done right, this monotone image is anything but monotonous. There is something very final about an image composed of grey values, it seems to have a permanence which Colour images just don't. Colour can be tweaked and altered to a far greater extent than the colour mix in a Black and White image, which just doesn't seem quite a honest to me. Of course, photography shouldn't be about sheer honesty, but rather an interpretation, but there's a point where an interpretation just turns into a lie with little or no basis in the reality. Whilst that also has a time and a place, it reduces the extent to which the audience can truly engage with a work, which is ultimately the majority of the point of all art. (That is if you presume that art should have a point at all of course).
In my opinion colour hides a multitude of sins, and actually can make an image which is hugely flawed seem to be a good image, purely because of the punch and WOW factor of the colours. I can't see those sorts of images lasting nearly as long as the monotone prints which engage on a far deeper level. The level of composition, of form, of carefully observed detail and texture.
Black and White engages you, Colour excites you. Black and White will stand the test of time, but something makes me suspect that colour won't.
The Zorki 4K
To call this camera the poor man's Leica is to give it something of a misnomer. To be honest, this thing has little in common with a Leica in terms of the shooting experience. When I come to shooting this thing having had my MP in my hand for a few hours, there's just no comparison. The viewfinder is far dimmer and smaller. The cocking lever is extraordinarily rough by comparison (but then again, even the ratchet on the FM3a seems crappy when compared with the brilliant piece of engineering showcased on the Leica). The rangefineder isn't nearly as accurate due to the less impressive base-length. There are no extra framelines in the viewfinder - it's 50mm or nothing.
BUT
That doesn't quite mean that this thing should be consigned to the scrap heap. At least not just yet. The primary reason I picked this thing up was just how cheap and innocuous it was. I can walk through most of London with this on my person without being unduly stressed, because it was £40 all told and if anyone did try to nick it, I could always just whack them around the head with it without risking damaging it. Seriously - this thing is built better than most russian tanks. It also has a rather good lens attached to it. In fact it's a bloody good lens considering that it was less than £20, and that it is over 25 years old. Even not considering those two factors it's a bloody good lens. Probably the equal of my 50mm f/2 Nikkor H-C, which is high praise indeed from a Nikkor-phile like me.
The Trip 35
The Trip 35 was way ahead of its time. As in lightyears, and in a few ways it's actually far better designed than a lot of far more expensive and modern cameras. Take, for example, the way it powers its meter - a selenium cell, or in slightly less geeky terms, a solar panel. That's right, a camera which was originally designed more than 30 years ago powers a fully automatic exposure system through the only power source that's unlikely to run out. Plus, you wont accidentally have it go off in your bag, wasting precious film, because it will refuse to trip the shutter (nice terrible pun, eh?) if there isn't enough light reaching the aforementioned selenium cell/solar panel. Clever Olympus.
This camera is riddled with nice little touches like this, like the oddly named 'judas-window' in the viewfinder, which allows you to see where you've put the zone focus and the aperture ring without having to take your eye away from the viewfinder, or the inclusion of eyelets on both sides of the camera, so our south paw friends needn't go without a wrist strap.
To think that Olympus managed to create a camera with no battery dependency, which could probably be used by someone who had never even picked up a camera before with little trouble. Just set the aperture to A (for automatic), set the focus to the red group (which sets the camera to its hyperfocal distance), and shoot. Brilliant.
But that isn't to say that this camera is solely for people who aren't really photographers, or to put it another way, overly simplistic. No, this camera actually has a few traits which bely its ability to be used as quite a serious, albeit simple and unobtrusive photographic tool. Why do you think David Bailey used one?
The first of these is the scalpel-like lens. This is better than a lot of the modern, expensive Nikkor glass I use, and is able to hold its own even against the sharper members of my Nikkor herd, including the legendary 55mm f/3.5 Micro-Nikkor and the 17-55mm f/2.8 Nikkor AF-S. The results really have to be seen in print to be believed, considering it is a) A 30 odd years old design and b) was mounted on what was intended to be a mass market camera.
The next is the inclusion of the hyper-focal marking, albeit rather subtly. This is quite a rarity nowadays, and I must confess it took me a while to work out why Olympus marked one focus point differently to all the others. Now I now, and so do you. Remember it if you use one of these brilliant little things, as it is key to what I reckon this camera is best put to use as.
"Which would be?"
Street-shooting.
This camera has all the traits necessary to create a truly legendary street camera. It's unobtrusive (especially in the increasingly rare, but oh-so-sexy black finish) because of its leaf shutter, it runs at a constant shutter speed of 1/60 or 1/200 (depending on whether you set the aperture manually, which is supposedly for flash, or leave the camera in A mode) which is fast enough to slow most action, whilst ensuring a smallish aperture is set during daylight, guaranteeing the success of the hyperfocal focussing technique. The choice of a 40mm lens means that shooting from the hip isn't as ridiculous a prospect with regards to composition as it is with other cameras (I personally don't really enjoy shooting from the hip, I'm too much of a control freak, and I don't really enjoy wasting film). It's light, and never needs the batteries replacing, so if you miss a shot, it's your fault rather than the camera's. And they're cheap and plentiful, so you don't have to worry about losing/dropping it.
This thing is simply brilliant, and it isn't half a handsome beast. If I'm leaving the house, this thing is probably in my bag, because even if you're not going out with the express intention of taking photos, you can never tell when an opportunity for an excellent image will present itself. The Trip means you need never miss that opportunity, if you're lucky enough to catch it, that is.
Saturday 29 November 2008
A Flower...
... Seems to be more than just a few bits of cellulose put together.
The Song of the Week
Photography
Photography means a lot to me.
It means a lot to a lot of people. There is something about being able to capture a fleeting moment infinitely so easily which people seem to love. It appeals to so many different people, from those who purely want a pictorial notebook, to those who pursue the perfect light and the perfect subject to the ends of the earth, purely to achieve their best work yet.
I lie somewhere inbetween these two ends of the spectrum, roughly where most people who would deem themselves "serious amateurs" reside. We are beyond the flash-nuked, red-eye plagued party shots of the aide memoir snapper, but not willing or able to give as much time to the pursuit of the perfect moment or scene as people such as Cartier-Bresson and Joe Cornish.
I do a lot of still-life work, and also a lot of stuff around a chunk of the Kentish coast where I have a holiday home. It's a pretty innocuous place, but there's always something there which can catch my eye, and what's more, I always take the time out to allow something to catch my eye whilst I'm there. Now my work is hardly the most inspiring or innovative stuff out there, but it brings me some pleasure, and if I wasn't out there taking photos of this place, I doubt many people would.
My photos may be more about artistic merit than they used to be, but there's still an element of preserving a memory in them. And that's something I never want to lose in them. Sure it might mean that I never become seriously good, but at least I'll still be able to enjoy my photos, and that's really their raison d'etre.
I lie somewhere inbetween these two ends of the spectrum, roughly where most people who would deem themselves "serious amateurs" reside. We are beyond the flash-nuked, red-eye plagued party shots of the aide memoir snapper, but not willing or able to give as much time to the pursuit of the perfect moment or scene as people such as Cartier-Bresson and Joe Cornish.
I do a lot of still-life work, and also a lot of stuff around a chunk of the Kentish coast where I have a holiday home. It's a pretty innocuous place, but there's always something there which can catch my eye, and what's more, I always take the time out to allow something to catch my eye whilst I'm there. Now my work is hardly the most inspiring or innovative stuff out there, but it brings me some pleasure, and if I wasn't out there taking photos of this place, I doubt many people would.
My photos may be more about artistic merit than they used to be, but there's still an element of preserving a memory in them. And that's something I never want to lose in them. Sure it might mean that I never become seriously good, but at least I'll still be able to enjoy my photos, and that's really their raison d'etre.
The First Post
Like I said in the description, this Blog is unlikely to be a work which is noted for its dazzling brilliance of language and unrivalled cogency, but that doesn't mean that
- I can't try
- It won't all be true and representative of my train of thought
No person handles rejection perfectly. Nobody likes to be told that they're not wanted, but I don't think it's the rejection which is exemplary of your value as a person, but rather the manner in which you deal with the rejection.
Ultimately there is nothing that can be done about a rejection or failure, so why dwell on it? Surely it should be easier to just say...
"Well I ain't letting myself get into that situation again"
...and move on.
Sure it would, but that would be so emotionless and cold as to render it inhuman. The disappointment associated with rejection is key to why we (on the whole) do the best to avoid it, and why we strive to better ourselves. In this way rejection isn't necessarily a bad thing, it can keep us spurred on, rather than allowing us to stagnate. Sometimes we need to dressing down which a rejection provides, and often with hindsight we will see just how important the disappointment was in bringing about our later happiness. Without feeling bad about rejection we couldn't feel good about acceptance, so of course we have to let it get to us, but we can't let it overwhelm us. Just enough to feeling to know we're not numb, but not too much to cause the numbness in the first place.
The simple fact of the matter is that even the best of us will face rejection at some point, but what will really mark you out as being amongst the best of us is whether you have the self-belief and humility to accept it, pick yourself up and move on.
Don't let one rejection brand your self-image with the word FAILURE. One rejection might just be an attempt to steer you in the right direction rather than tell you to give up altogether.
Ultimately there is nothing that can be done about a rejection or failure, so why dwell on it? Surely it should be easier to just say...
"Well I ain't letting myself get into that situation again"
...and move on.
Sure it would, but that would be so emotionless and cold as to render it inhuman. The disappointment associated with rejection is key to why we (on the whole) do the best to avoid it, and why we strive to better ourselves. In this way rejection isn't necessarily a bad thing, it can keep us spurred on, rather than allowing us to stagnate. Sometimes we need to dressing down which a rejection provides, and often with hindsight we will see just how important the disappointment was in bringing about our later happiness. Without feeling bad about rejection we couldn't feel good about acceptance, so of course we have to let it get to us, but we can't let it overwhelm us. Just enough to feeling to know we're not numb, but not too much to cause the numbness in the first place.
The simple fact of the matter is that even the best of us will face rejection at some point, but what will really mark you out as being amongst the best of us is whether you have the self-belief and humility to accept it, pick yourself up and move on.
Don't let one rejection brand your self-image with the word FAILURE. One rejection might just be an attempt to steer you in the right direction rather than tell you to give up altogether.
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