Fun with color.

 

I'm busy setting up the studio to photograph one of my friend's large paintings. I've been testing my favorite lenses and seeing how well they work with the "high resolution" multi-shot mode on a Leica SL2. The camera generates a 180 megapixel file but it really looks more like just a doubling of resolution. On a stout tripod the effect is really nice. We'll hit the paintings tomorrow. 

He wanted to pay me for the time/expertise (one of my first jobs for Texas Monthly Magazine was shooting oil paintings of western scenes at the Humanities Research Center. Yes, I used cross polarized lights) but since I decided to be retired I suggested that next time we're out for dinner with our spouses he'd be on the hook to pick up the check. Works for both. 

Today was also another day of turning down work from several clients. I thought it would be emotionally difficult but it really wasn't. The secret is to have several photographers whose work I like so I have people to recommend for those clients. One person I recommend to most of my former corporate clients is Charles Quinn. He's really good with people and his work is also good. Kinda fun to draw a line in the sand and maintain it. I just don't want to leave the clients hanging if I can help it. 

The shoulder is healing quickly. The cold is on its way out and I'm feeling much better. Reading too much and doing to little else this week. But it's all okay. Trying to save up energy for the holidays. 

I almost bought yet another lens today. I still might follow through. It's such a nice idea for a lens.... Or lenses.

Such a good look for a 70 year old man. Call my publicist!

First of all, I am reprising my "Kirk in Hats" images here to remind myself to always, always cover up when possible if going out in the sun. It's been a full week now since I had a quick bout of surgery to remove a cancerous spot on my left shoulder blade and it's been a lot less fun of a week that it could have been, but at the same time, much better than it might have been. I didn't see the size of the incision when the surgeon finished stitching me up but, damn, it's almost 2.75 inches in length. Since one has to clean, treat and re-bandage this kind of surgical incision daily it's been a logistical pain in the butt. The crappiest part is... no swimming until the 29th. Bah! Humbug.

I did all my own "wound" care for the last bout of surgery but that was on my face. Hard to miss it and easy to treat it. But...not only can I not turn my head around 180° to see this one, I can't effectively reach it either. Which basically means I have to depend on others once per day to keep this recovery rolling.

I hate that. But whatcha gonna do? 

Since I'm not swimming or running I'm participating in what is a favorite pastime for many, many photographers; surfing the web and thinking about buying stuff that looks like a lot of fun but at the same time is stuff I really don't need. Not that this has ever stopped me from making impulsive purchases followed by months and years of looking at stuff I've only used once or twice whenever I open a drawer to get a more useful piece of gear out. So, what are we considering today?

There are two lenses I have halfway convinced myself I might need for some vague, future project. The new Voigtlander 90mm f2 APO lens for M mount and the Thypoch 75mm f1.4 lens, also for M. Each has their own charm --- or at least it seems so when reading the specs, reviews and odds and ends. But here's the rub. There are no more clients and so no lens is really rationizable in the same way it would have been just a year ago. Then there would have been at least the presumption that at some point I might need a specific lens's unique and charming view of the world. Now? Not so much. But that shopping pattern seems hard to break... 

Here's the real problem in both instances: I already have lenses at each of those focal lengths for both the M system and the L mount system. And they are lenses that I haven't historically used as much as I have other lenses. Other focal lengths. 

I am considering the 90mm for the dopamine hit one gets from scoring a lens with "APO" in its name. There is some spot in my brain that lies to me and tells me that it would be beyond cool to have a set of Voigtlander APO lenses ranging from 35mm to 90mm nestled in a small bag, getting chummy with a couple of rangefinder cameras and all of us exploring the great Southwestern United States on an epic but gear efficient road trip. Three lenses to handle everything. The ancient Leica rangefinder trilogy of 35,50, 90. And viewfinders to accommodate all three focal lengths. With nifty frame lines. 

I have both the Voigtlander 35mm f2 APO and the 50mm f2 APO so the 90mm just makes some sort of convoluted common sense. But then there is the mysterious allure of the 75mm f1.4 Thypoch. I could see myself doing some variation of the great adventure with the 28mm, 50mm and 75mm Thypochs. Two  of which I also have sitting here on the desktop. They are only impatiently waiting for the 75mm to join them. All of them being f1.4 lenses is like catnip for an older generation of photographers...

A singular benefit to all these lenses is that M mount lenses can be adapted to any modern mirrorless camera, across brands. If you buy rangefinder lenses because you thought you might leverage the M series cameras to become the next Robert Frank or Henri Cartier-Bresson but have since decided that the whole act of rangefinder focusing doesn't suit you it's nice to know that you can use the lenses, with inexpensive adapters, on Sony, Canon, Nikon, Sigma, Panasonic and Leica L mount cameras instead. 

While you won't look as cool and trendy as you would sporting an M10P or an M11 monochrom you'll still look pretty savvy. And fashionable. Well, unless you use them on a Sony... A conflicting aesthetic and conflicting operational ethos there....

I'm currently leaning toward the 75mm Thypoch because in the swirling mists of the past I owned and used the Leica Summilux 75mm f1.4 on an M6 and loved the focal length. It's also short enough so the finder frame lines are workable. The Thypoch is fast but an added benefit over that older Leica lens is that the Thypoch has a floating element design that preserves its performance even at very close focusing distances. And that's really nice if you end up using it with a Visoflex on your M or with an adapter on something like an SL3. It's also about $100 lens than the Voigtlander 90mm.

I also find 90mm lenses harder to use (composition within smaller frame lines) on my rangefinder cameras without wanting an optical viewfinder in the hot shoe or at least an EVF in the hot shoe. 

I already own and rarely use the Voigtlander 90mm f2.8 APO Ultron lens. It's small and nice but maybe a little too small and dainty when used (with an adapter) on a big camera like the SL2. I've used it so infrequently that it seems to caution me against getting yet another lens in that focal length. But it's this same cautioning that keeps me from immediately ordering the 75mm I talked about above. Because I already have the Voigtlander 75mm f1.9 lens and while it's not the absolute best performer at its minimum focus distance it is small and light and ... already paid for. 

And speaking of duplication we've got a 75mm f2 AF lens for the L mount gear as well as two different 90mm lenses. One AF and one older MF. So, really, shopping is just an addiction for people who, for medical reasons or sloth, can't get out the door and use the cameras they already have. 

Sorry to burden you with this but... That's the nature of this blog. Sometimes it veers into gear talk. 

Stuff comes in waves. So last week it was the surgery and this Sunday, almost instantaneously, I came down with a weird head cold. Runny nose forever which then, on Monday evolved into a hearty cough and now both of those symptoms have mostly subsided and I'm now left feeling a bit ragged. When stuff like this happens the only comfortable thing for me to do is to type and type. And scroll through the B&H website, the Leica Store Miami and KEH. Sad, isn't it?

Ready for that trip to Costco.

included as wishful thinking. Someday, someday.

Running on a beach in Vancouver with a black umbrella. It rains in Vancouver. It rains a lot in Vancouver. And it gets chilly in the winter while it's raining a lot. I imagine that's why there are so many good coffee shops and more than a handful of great donut emporia. Gotta have a pastime....

Austin, Texas Autumn Skies.

 

In an age in which privacy is important we have come to appreciate mannequins. Mannequin Photo Workshop coming soon!!! (Not really....).

 

I reinterpreted my doctor's orders and did a long walk. I took a camera with me. I took my black and white sentiment with me as well. I am wearing an old pair of pants that always fit me perfectly. They still do but now they have spots and splashes of green paint that won't wash out and around the bottom of the trouser legs is some discoloration caused by mishandled bleach. I just couldn't bear to throw the pants out because they fit so well. So comfortable. I've incorporated them into my "street photography uniform" since they seem... worker-esque now. An old, long sleeve t-shirt on top. Some scuffed Birkenstocks on the bottom and I'm good to go. The walk was very productive. So far it's generated images for four blog posts. Amazing what one can accomplish in an hour or so of walking, looking and not worrying about...anything. 

Hey, if you want to see an interesting, current, black and white movie you might be interested in: 

Nouvelle Vague. It's a movie by Richard Linklater (Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Boyhood, etc.) and it's a fictional look at the making of French director, Jean-Luc Goddard's breakthrough, trendsetting 1960s movie, Breathless. Breathless was a movie that changed cinema in a profound way. Handheld camera, black and white, nearly square format, no real script, gorgeous stars. Everything. And Linklater does a masterful job of getting the feel of the older movie reimagining just right. Absolutely just right. 

Admission: I have a copy of "Breathless" in my library. Love every second of it. 

The new movie, Nouvelle Vague just dropped on Netflix. Watch it as many times are you want. A warning for those living in red states: It's mostly in French (a foreign language) and it is subtitled. To get the full value of the movie you need to be able to read.... or understand spoken French.

On to the mannequins... >

Virtual mannequins .

See the reflection on the top right of the mannequin's head?

I used the reflection removal tool in Lightroom on a similar image below

 and with one click removed the entire refection. 

It's seems to have worked flawlessly...

Reflection on head totally erased and replaced with the underlying image.

Loving the Grateful Dead t-shirt.

And the vague attempt at making the glasses fit.

A critic who is unamused. 

A committee meeting at the East Window. 

We will not be at war with Switzerland!

Hurray. 

I'm sure you've been Breathlessly awaiting an update on my medical progress. All good here. Family and staff changing bandages. The sutures look fabulous and will no doubt generate many tall tales about bar room knife fights when I take my shirt off for swim practice. Everything is healing nicely. My GP inspected the work of the specialist and gave his two thumbs up. Guarded optimism everywhere. 

Lots of time to blog. With an edge. Buyers beware. (for the snooty amongst us: Caveat Emptor!).

Yesterday I played with a 90mm lens and the idea of black and white imaging. How to find the tones I like. Not the ones in the textbook..

 

I think it is impossible to explain to anyone else how you see. Literally, how your eyes and your brain interpret the things in front of you that enter your consciousness via your eyeballs, your optic nerves and the interpolation of your own, unique, "Bayer" filter. It's a time honored tradition in philosophy to wonder if the way one person sees the color red is the same way, exactly, that another person sees the color red. When we use science to try and figure out what works and what doesn't we end up with an empty embracing of... "the average." But it's entirely possible that the science is wrong and that colors and shapes are rendered either vaguely or radically different from person to person and culture to culture. 

In 1939 or 1940 (or both) photographer, Ansel Adams, came up with a system for exposing and developing black and white films in a way that gave the resulting material a wide range of tones. The widest range that would fit well on photographic paper and at the same time accurately reflect; to him! the tonality of the scene the camera captured. Tight regulation of time and temperature of development would create a negative with more contrast (a more limited number of steps between full black and full white) or a negative with less contrast ( many more finer steps between the extremes. Also referred to as a "flat" negative). 

The lesser minds of photography, from then until today, embraced the idea that more tones was better. That more tones was more "accurate" and that making more tones and trying (desperately) to shove them onto the four or five stops of dynamic range of photographic paper represented the "correct" and unimpeachable approach to making photographs. These practitioners and misguided interpreters of Ansel Adam's intention delight in making images in which the widest range of gray tones possible must be represented in a photographic image while giving a cavalier nod to the notion that a tiny bit of pure black and an equally tiny bit of white should also be present somewhere in the print or digital image in order to represent accurately the full scale. Open shadows and discernible highlight details were the main targets of the exercise. 

In many ways the folks who still practice the endless gray aesthetic resemble the fanatics of mid-epic digital imaging in their search for whatever the latest obsession was, in line with technical advances; photos of kitty whiskers to show of the ultimate in image resolution and sharpness. HDR overkill to show off ever improved dynamic range. And kilo acres of images not meant to show off content or point of view but to prove a technical concept. High resolution and high dynamic range became the grandchildren of the quest for ever longer grayscale tonal ranges. But the grandfathers of black and white photography are still beating the old horse. 

Thank goodness for photographers like Bill Brandt, Daido Moriyama and so many others who showed us, emphatically, that shadows could be inky black and highlights at the extreme could blow out to white, and that the higher contrast would serve the image, serve the vision and serve the aesthetic in a way that slavishly following Adams's basic tool for negative expansion could not duplicate. It's instructive to all that many of Adams's prints are filled with blocked shadows. They impart an important piece of the puzzle when it comes to whether a print or digital image is captivating, exciting, melodic and engaging. 

Flat black and white images were a temporary partial fix to the fact that materials in 1940 didn't print well in offset printing. Blacks tended to fill up too quickly on the presses and a shift to restore detail in shadows by making them lighter and flatter had the effect of killing the highlights. Beginning with a flatter negative, and then a flatter print gave offset press operators more options, more chances at getting a good half tone from a printing press. Real artists understood this and worked around it for the most part. But a contemporary John Sexton print of maple trees makes highly effective use of black and white, as well as the necessary grays, to make beautiful images. His secret is to mix in contrast to the art print. That's what give it life. Looking at original prints by Edward Weston informs me that he never intended his print to be primarily made for mechanical reproduction but were considered destined to be framed and displayed. His blacks testify to this.

Anyway, I was playing around trying to see how to get what I like out of my camera, lens and post processing (we have so many more options toward success today with post processing...).  I used my camera and lens set up as a black and white system with the Leica "High Contrast Monochrome" setting engaged and shot in the Jpeg format. I like an inky black. I don't fear deep shadows. I've grown up in Texas where the sun is bright and highly collimated on cloud free days. It seems natural to me to see shadows that seem, when juxtaposed next to subjects in full sun, as black as can be. I worked to represent this as accurately as my own preferences allowed. I am not above raising the shadows a bit and I'm always in favor of adding significant contrast to mid-tones. I find very flat prints very boring and staid; like experiments in 1950's half tone printing. But a beautiful black goes a long way toward anchoring a look.

Here are things I photographed in order to practice with the tones. Some images were shot about two stops under what the camera meter suggested. Some less. But none anywhere near the null point of the meter. Saving the highlights and dealing with shadows and deep mid-tones in post.

No detail in the middle person's cap. No detail in the left hand person's white shirt. No elevated shadows. Much more personalized than stylized. 

Christmas Season Approaches. Back to the Theatre for a fun dress rehearsal on Tuesday.

 

Last photographs of the day. Over on South Congress Ave. Racks of "Love Locks."

 

Images taken with the Leica SL2-S and the Sigma Contemporary 90mm f2.8.

A nice combination for work in low light and work up near the 

minimum focusing distance. Nice out of focus rendering as well. 

f3.5 and be there.