New Photo Blog is Now At BeckermanPhoto.com/blog

This blog has moved to BeckermanPhoto.com/blog

Of course during the years my photography store also moved and directories changed and so most of the images are no longer here to be seen... however the writing remains. And I suspect that at some point I'm going to go back to this blog to pull some of the better posts and recycle them in the new photoblog.

Soothsayers

As the baseball season winds down in the freezing rain, I think back to the beginning of the season when I made my own baseball comeback. This was the season that I forced myself to enjoy baseball again. I listened to sports radio where the Mets and Yankees were discussed endlessly. My mind was filled with the gnashing and meandering of sports fans. And more than anything, the prognostications of sports pundits.

How sure they all were about the outcomes for each team and each player. How wrong they were.

And then I made the connection to the political pundits. Here they were again. Telling us what was going to happen and how wrong they were.

I'm not talking about just the pea-brained, cable-news pundits. I'm talking about the big guys with their best-selling books. Wrong. All wrong. Well-intentioned (I like to give the benefit of the doubt when I can) but wrong.

All wrong. From the beginning.

The press was wrong because it was so excited about going off to war.

The intellectuals were wrong because... well that's not why I'm here. They were just wrong. But it's one thing to go on air or in the paper and say the Yankees will win it in 4 games; and it's another thing to say that Iraq will be the beginning of a democratic wave.

But for now - I can only suggest that we have an overarching need to know what is going to happen next. And this need for soothsayers is as old as delphi, maybe older. And I'm not against knowing what will happen next, but I would like to propose some sort of regulations. If you are going to prognosticate for a living, then you should be made to wear an electronic sign which shows your current won/loss percentage.

It's sort of like the eBay customer satisfaction rating.

I wouldn't take it too far. Politicians would be forced to wear the soothsayer rating label, but only while they're running for office. Once elected the electronic label will have to be removed for the good of the country.

Like they always say when we fail at something - if we can put a man on the moon - why not soothsayer badges?

Or as some have said before, badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges.

Corrupt Official

[Rick and Renault discussing Victor Laszlo's chances of escaping Casablanca]

Captain Renault: This is the end of the chase.
Rick: Twenty thousand francs says it isn't.
Captain Renault:Is that a serious offer?
Rick: I just paid out twenty. I'd like to get it back.
Captain Renault: Make it ten. I'm only a poor corrupt official.

m3 / digicam

Brought the Leica M3 in to Panorama Camera Center to see what it was going to cost to fix the problem with the shutter (at slow shutter speeds). The repair guy looked it over and said the camera would need "a complete overhaul," and I believe him. Cost $240. Will be ready in a few weeks. Nice place. Felt comfortable there.

In the meantime, I've gone back to using the Bessa R2A. The main problem I have with that camera is that a) shutter is loud, not as loud as an SLR, but louder than a Leica and b) the viewfinder doesn't automatically switch frame lines when you put a lens in; and in fact, several times, the small lever at the top has moved without my knowing it and I've found myself shooting with the 50mm lens, while the framelines were set to 35mm. That just happened to me again. I'm going to just tape the lever down to 50mm marking since that's the only lens I've been using with the camera.

On the other hand - I'm sure you've got a more accurate and faster shutter in the Bessa, and you also get M7 features like Aperature Priority and even a button on the back to lock exposure while you press said button.

I guess I've come to the conclusion after lots of playing around, and lots of pixel peeping, that this stuff called film is still a better way to go for b&w. Definitely better results than with the p/s digicam. For color - I'd still have to recommend an dSLR with good lenses. In short, what I'm saying is that the lens and image quality of the A640 type of camera is only so - so when you compare it with a good lens. The resolution with the A6xx Canon line just can't be compared with resolution with a good lens and film. Oh well.

* * *

Let's Go Mets

Yikes. Now it gets scary. If I have to listen to one more pundit say: good pitching beats good hitting - one more time. But - ya gotta believe. Why ya gotta believe, I dunno - but ya just gotta. Oy vey. It's true - the Mets have been gettin' by without starting pitching - but they're just gonna have to do it again - two nights in a row.

Whatever happens - it's been a great season. But I sure would like it to go on for a few more games. I can't get into football. I'm going to have to find some other sport to follow in the baseball off-season. Maybe badminton. I wonder why badminton never really caught on in the states. If you play it right - as we used to do in the Bronx - it can be very exciting. One rule we had was that if you hit the other guy in the face with the shuttlecock - you got extra points. And throwing the racket was also allowed.

Anyway - I will continue to believe - until it's over one way or another.

Colorama

I've been pretty busy with commercial installations during the last few weeks, i.e. prints for offices, condos, buildings etc. and although I've been posting a lot of photographs, I haven't had a chance to go through the logic - if there is any - of what I've been doing as far as color / digital / b&W and all that stuff that just takes too much energy to put into words.

But let me try anyway. These are rules, more or less, about what works for me. But your results as they say - and the results I've seen for other photographers - definitely may vary.

If I'm dealing with street shots (and by that I mean those odd-angled, quick shots where strangers are prominent, and the picture has to do with confluence of human beings in the moment) then black & white works better.

Some of this may just be historical - what I'm used to looking at - but some of it may be because we (and I speak here for the human race in general) want to see ordinary things - but only if they are abstract and black and white does that. Abstraction distances the viewer so that the ordinary can be seen as "art."

The blurry guy jumping across the puddle by the railway station works in b&w because it is more abstract then if color had been used; who knows if color might distract from the concept of the picture; and even the blur helps to make this an "everyman."

There are exceptions to the "street b&w" rule - where color has either been made to play a part in the street image - or is actually important in the shot - but again - these are exceptions. Again - I want to place emphasis on the proportion and the importance of the people in the shot. I'm not talking about tiny people in the audience or on the street.

City Landscapes. Again - there may be people in the shot - but they're not that prominent. Now here I think you've got more choices. If the color is either more or less "real" - i.e. more pictorial, then how we actually see color - then you can distance the viewer so that they feel that it is easier to achieve an aesthetic feeling. But the same could be said for black and white. So the urban landscape is a toss up.

It's a tricky business. We say that we want to see ordinary things - but want we really hunger for - is ordinary things - seen in an unusual way.

Sunset is popular because the atmospheric effects are recognizable - but rare. If the entire day was sunset, and there was only 1/2 hour when the sun was bright, glaring and glaring down at you - would that 1/2 hour be the most beautiful time of day?

How boring would it be to always be looking at an orange sky?

In other words - as far as color goes - the subject matter can be banal: a doorway, a fire hydrant, a building - but intensified color or black and white can give an air of abstraction that allows the viewer to see the form as if for the first time. And the reason that this is a little bit easier for the artist to achieve - as opposed to shots that are more "of the moment" is simply that there is more time to contemplate how the pieces fit together in terms of color and/or black and white whereas to get the pieces to work on various levels with the "quick shot" seems to be nearly impossible for me. And I say "for me" because I have seen this trick accomplished.

And if you can do it - more power to you.

Secret Agent Man

There's a man who leads a life of danger.
To everyone he meets he stays a stranger
With every move he makes,
Another chance he takes.
Odds are he won't live to see tomorrow.

Secret Agent Man.
Secret Agent Man.
They've given you a number.
And taken away your name.

On Ice

"Do you know what blood looks like in a black and white video?
Shadows.
Shadows. That's exactly what it looks like." Lake Marie John Prine


* * *

I've been printing color all day today. One thing I'll say is that I have a lot more flexibility with color than I've ever had before. I'm doing all my printing on the silver rag paper. Rich air-dried look. I have a lot to play with and compare: the new things from the A640, and a years worth of shots from the Canon Rebel and the 20D. The one obvious difference between the point & shoot and the SLR is the sensor size and the resulting greater amount of noise at higher ISO that you get with the A640 type of camera. There are one or two small sensor cameras with less noise at higher ISO, but they are missing other features that I like. There is also at least one P/S with a larger sensor on the way from Samsung.

I still vote for the turn / swivel LCD screen for composing. It gives a 100% view, which is more than I can say for some of the dSLRs. I've had very little clipping (chopping off highlights); and it is okay at ASA 400 if run through Noise Ninja. (I made noise profiles for the A640 which work a lot better than auto-profiling).

All that being said, I need two cameras. One for daylight walking around (A640) and one for low-light, or more static stuff.

But the SLR is necessary as the second camera for low-light, or more static stuff. At that point you just go nuts because in the Canon line there are so many choices it can make your head spin. If money was no object (which it is) than I'd spring for the 5D with a couple of prime EF lenses.

But money is still a consideration - and given the rate at which I go through cameras - I think for now I'll just stay on the sidelines and work with the A640 until I find out that the 6D is out and the price of the 5D has been cut in half - or something like that or buy EF Canon lenses for use with say the 400D - and know that when I do spring for the full-frame, I'll already have the lenses.

Roosevelt Island, Night

Mets

They're running out of pitchers... But it doesn't matter... Willie said that if John Maine couldn't start tomorrow they were going to give the ball to Julio Franco.

It's been a

busy couple of weeks - business-wise. I just caught up with everything: a couple of images for textbooks; two large prints for business offices; and a bunch of regular orders. And enjoying the A640 - taking it with me everywhere - and continuing down the color road: full steam ahead.

I got to see the Carbon / Silver Walker Evans exhibit. Just a quick note about that - I was initially disappointed that they didn't say what paper / printer / ink they used for the inkjet renditions (which were superb); but then as I was thinking it over - I thought: oh - why do they have to disclose the specifics... When you see silver gelatin prints in a gallery do you see which developer / paper / enlarger was used? No. That's up to you to investigate if you want to find out more.

There are many large prints - which are stunning. The exhibitors make a point of saying that they were able to "open up the shadows" and show details that you don't ordinarily see in the work. That was true - but personally - I probably would have left the contrast as it was in the original work - but that's just my taste.

It was a stunning exhibit and any chance you get to see Walker Evans photographs, whether they're original contact prints, inkjets, or posters - it's always a good thing.

It's at the UBS Gallery: 1285 6th Avenue, until Nov. 9

color workflow

I will try to write a little bit about my own color workflow but honestly, it is very fluid and different for each image. What is the same is that whatever camera I'm using - I want the camera to do as little as possible in terms of saturation / sharpness etc. If the camera has RAW capability than I will go with that. With the jpg / A640 it is set to neutral which I think is even less saturated than normal mode.

The fun begins by trying to imagine different looks for the image. In the "Thirsty" image (for example) there are about 15 layers, each with a squarish piece of the image - some pieces burned with multiply, some dodged with screen; and trying to make some pieces more or less prominent by the pieces around it. In other words - and I've mentioned this before - the color work is like painting and less real than the b&w work. Why that should be - I'm not sure.

I have a lot of choices with the Exposure plug-in in terms of film-looks - but some images are part Kodachrome, part Ecktachrome... It's like playing with a puzzle.

The image below of Dunkin' Donuts - is pretty straight foward. After the usual noise reduction is run, the image was converted to Kodachrome 64. Then pieces that I wanted to stand out - the windows - a bit of the parking sign - about 10 different pieces - were screened so they'd stand out in the darkness.

I don't think that I've used the Saturation adjustment layer at all - though I don't know why not. But saturation and de-saturation is achieved by using color / multiply blending and sometimes by making use of a b&w conversion layer for desaturation or to pump up the blacks.

What I'm trying to say is that it's like working on a mosaic - esp. the urban landscape which is all squares and rectangles with an occassional circle tossed in.

Why choose Kodachrome 64 for Dunkin' Donuts and not the EES which I was using for the Coney Island stuff? I don't know myself but the Kodachrome has a pinkish glow that seemed right for Donuts!

Did you ever stand in front of a bare room while a designer showed you paint swatches? That's sort of what it's like. You hold up swatches and try and imagine what an entire room with that puce swatch will do for you. In the case of The Poe Cottage shot - I wanted a moldy, greenish, decrepit look. For Thirsty - the more garish the better. It is, after all - freak shows and Coney Island.