Feeding your creativity – The Best Photographer you’ve never heard of

Hi gang,

As photographers, we are often bombarded with images, videos and all kinds of mediaforms in this day and age. So much so that one can lose himself. You want to do too much and you end up doing nothing. You see so many images and videos you lose that urge to create. You start thinking that it’s all been done before.

Cartier bresson famously said “Il n’y a plus d’idees nouvelles. Que des nouvelles interpretations d’idees existantes”.
Roughly translated it states that there are no new ideas. Only new interpretations. If a photographer that brilliant was faced with the same problem so many years ago, surely we can get over it. It also has a secondary negative effect, collateral damage one might say. It’s an incredibly bad feeling that can really, really put you in a bad space and place. You see so much amazing work that you want to do that it becomes overwhelming and you end up doing nothing. Bodie wrote “Apathy is the glove in which evil slips his hand”. I believe this is quite true. The less you do, the less creative you become. Being creatively active incites creative action of it’s own.

When that happens, I like to focus myself on 1 project, 1 type of thing and concentrate on that. When I lose my focus on street photography I read articles or view videos on street photography to rekindle and refocus my interest. Going to museums, galleries, exhibitions is one of the best ways to rekindle and fascination and restart activity for me.

On one of these recent inspiration quests I stumbled onto the photography of Pete Souza. To many of you his name will draw a blank. However, in my opinion he is one of the best photographers in his line of work that you’ve never heard of.

Pete Souza is the official White House photographer. That means he records every moment of the President and his entourage. Every meeting, Every intimate moment, Every travel is documented through his lens. This man has an amazing life. He has an almost uncapped access to the most inner workings of one of the most mysterious offices in the world. Pete is everywhere. He has a close working relationship with the President, but also with the rest of the staff in the White House. You can’t help but smile when you look at his pictures. I shows the family spirit that resides within 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and it is a testament to the camaraderie people know when they work closely in controlled surroundings.

I love reportage photography. Classic photojournalistic reportagework like Cartier-Bresson, Nachtwey, and others shows the sides of life you tend to overlook. The whole point is to focus on and capture details, moments, nuances of a part of life that you either don’t have access to, or overloop unconsciously.

Reportage work is a high-pressure situation. You have to depict what happens in front of your nose and it has to be true. People who aren’t there have to be able picture it for themselves. That is already a difficult job that Souza does effortlessly.
However he adds an aesthetic to it that I have not often seen. He manages to capture these moments and frame them fantastically. Some images he produces are amazing. You have to look for the details, like in the image above the fact that Obama’s hands, and only his hands are lit. Every picture holds some little details that pulls the whole photograph to another level. That to me, is amazing journalism. This is why Pete Souza is one of the greatest photographers living today. To be able to combine such a high-pressure job and still find time for the aesthetic of the thing is amazing. I’ve included some of his best work according to me, but you can find all of his work on the White House flickr account. It goes back to 2009 so there is a lot to go through.

PBS shot a documentary about him in 2009 I believe that you can watch for free on their site. It is an amazing documentary, a must-see definitely. It is called : The President’s Photographer : Fifty Years inside the Oval Office and you can watch it here

The Death of the dSlr? All hail the dSlm!

For the last time, happy newyear Gang!

At the eve of the unveiling of Fuji’s latest and greatest attempt at creating a fantastic mirrorless camera, the X-T1 I took time to reflect on something that has bothered me all year long.

If one topic was hot in 2013, it was the so-called death of the dSlr. Dozens of websites pronounced the dSlr dead since the introduction of APS-C sized mirrorless cameras.

I really dont get the hype around this. Is it going to happen? Not likely. Is it really what they mean ? Even less so. Is it important? Even less so.
I think they should restate their statement. A more appropriate statement would be, Death of the mirror-based camera, for the most of the consumers. Long live the mirrorless for the rest.

When people think of the concept of the dSlr they automatically think of clapping mirrors and stuff. An etymological analysis of the term reveals this to be fundamentally incorrect. dSlr stands for Digital Single Lens Reflex. As everyone can see, the word mirror is not present in that term. The term reflex is used to describe the working of the reflected image viewable in the pentaprism.

The term dslr originates in the shape that contributed to the fact that the camera we associate with the term is one of the most iconic camera-design of all times. Why? Because it was easy to use, relatively cheap to produce and made photography accesible to the masses. It allowed technological progress like AF, that at that time was only conceivable on such a platform. This is the main reason why out of all the camera designes that were designed, the dslr and the slr before that stuck the longest.

dSlr were the first digital cameras. Why? Because the were the only camera design that allowed the integration of a chip with the exact same workflow of an analog camera. The slr offered the design with the least technological difficulties when it came to implement a chip in stead of a film. The chip would have to react like a portion of film so it had to work like one. The mirror and shutter were already present, so replacing the film with a chip would be less of an issue. The transition from analog to digital would be more seamless than say, converting a twin lens reflex.

So why are they declaring the dslr dead now in stead of say, 2004, when compact cameras first started to appear without mirrors?
Because now, unlike before, the image quality produced by mirrorless cameras is rivalling and surpassing the quality of dslr’s. Something that had never been the case before.

It all has to do with technology. The reason dslr’s are big and bulky is because they need to house a lot of stuff. A sensor, a mirror box, an autofocus system, a lens mounts, a pentaprism and so on. Those things take physical space. They were so big because the only sensors capable of delivering good performance during the dawn of the dslr were larger than any before that. With the advent of full frame dslr’s it even increased. Smaller sensors didn’t have the sufficient technological prowess to produce good, professional images. It was purely technologically bound. Small cameras could never obtain the image quality of dslr’s because the technology did not allow to put all that into a smaller body. Until now.

However, that is not the point. The point is that we’ve come to a point where the technology allows us to remove the mirror. The mirror used to be a quintessential part of the (d)slr. Without it, unlike rangefinders, you wouldn’t be able to see through the lens because previous generation sensors couldn’t perform live view. You would’ve been shooting blanks back then. Used to, because the last 2 years the advances in sensor-technology have been amazing. The first introduction of liveview on dslr cameras was mostly a gimmick. Sure it was cool to be able to see what you were shooting on the larger back LCD and such, but the functionality was quite bad. The first generations wouldn’t autofocus, and if they did it was horribly slow. However, we have come to a point now that autofocus technology in liveview has advanced to a useful addition to the camera. I believe that in the next year or so, the mirror will have become more of a nuisance than an advantage. Incredible but true. This to me is the true evolution to be made.

Think about it. Mirrors are essentially glass, which means they are fragile. They are also a fast moving part, which by design is prone to mechanical failure. Mirrors also induce shutter blackouts. You know, the moment your optical viewfinder goes black when you click the shutterbutton and the mirror flops open. Another often forgotten but very annoying downside is that due to the mechanical nature of the mirror, it induces vibration where it shouldn’t. You aren’t going to notice that vibration if you are shooting at a 1/1000th of a seond, but in the critical hand-holdable spheres, like 1/60th and slower it is going to be a world of difference. I have hand held shots on my APS-C sized mirrorless camera at 1/17th of a second and they are tack-sharp. Something that, due to the inherent design of the dslr as they are built now is impossible.

However, the continued size reduction has some downsides also, and THAT, to me, is the interesting part and an essential one linked to the future of the dslr. Since these dslr’s were big due to the fact that they had to house a lot of components, they had the luxury of being able to be ergonomically designed to be pleasant. Dslr are rough and tough. The have big grips, big buttons, they are solid and that is why they are workhorses. Due to the fact that there is a lot of space, there are a lot of buttons for quick and easy access. This is why pros love them. Imagine shooting in the snow, with gloves and a ski goggles and having to change settings constantly. Your small mirrorless camera with those few buttons will be a pain in the ass to adjust.

The difference between the two usergroups will increase due to these facts. I usually lug a 2 pound lens on a 2 pound body around for my photography. If I found a valid replacement that allowed me to have the same quality for a quarter of that I would jump on it. It won’t be for every photographer, but for me it is perfect.

So do I think the death of the dslr is upon us? Absolutely not. I think the death of the mirror-based dslr is upon most of us. As I’ve said, the mirror has lost its duties and advantages. It brings more negatives than positives in the near feature. However, the dslr will not disappear, it will more so become a speciality camera.

The dSlr is fundamentally different from the mirrorless camera by design and that is a good thing. They both have their places in the world of digital photography. To me, dslr have far, far superior ergonomics than mirrorless cameras, but they are meant to be. They are meant to be full of buttons and functions for quick and easy access without having to dig into rows and colums of unclear menus. They have to be rapidly set up and altered.

Another thing : you cannot forget the huge number of lenses, accessories and such that exist for the dslr. Nikon or Canon are not just going to dump that userbase. It would be an unwise businnes decision first, but an all-around bad decision as well. Neither of them can afford to drop their existing pro-userbase that have invested tens of thousands of dollars into their gear and make them switch to a completely different platform.

In conclusion : I don’t think the dslr is dead. Not at all. It is going to undergo some changes. The mirrors will disappear. But there will always be bodies like the flagship bodies of Nikon and Canon because working professionals require them. They need rough and tough cameras with a lot of buttons for easy access.
I do think however that the over-saturated market of consumer-dslr’s will die out. Nikon recently released the d3300. Yet another iteration of a perfectly fine camera to begin with that only brings minor updates. People buy them because they think the images quality if far, far superior to a mirrorless, small camera. For some time they were right, but things are about to change.

All hail the dSlm !

P.S : The last thing I quickly want to touch on is kind off the same but with cinema. A lot of people are calling out photography’s death now that Blackmagic, RED, ARRI and others are producing 4K cameras that have the same or better resolution as digital cameras.
To me, this is even less of a valid point. A first objection can be made in the practicality. Although these devices are reducing in sizes, they are still incredibly more cumbersome and fragile than dslrs. They require unwieldy battery packs, memory banks, LCD displays and such. A second objection can be made regarding the practicality. Sure you can record at 4k and in the future i guess even 16k but that doesnt make sense for photography. Photography is capture frame by frame. Traditional cinematography is 24/s. This means that holding down the shutter for a second gives you 24 frames. Imagine doing a whole photoshoot with that. How many hours and days would you spend in postproductions looking for the perfect shot? A third objection, and this is really one of the biggest is the price. You can have an excellent digital camera for 1500$. All of these abovementionned systems will cost you with lenses, batteries and such around 15,000-25,000$. That is just ridiculous for amateurs and such.

Ringing in the new year with amazing memories

Hi gang,

Everyone is gearing up for the last party of the year, which often coincides with also being the biggest.
If you are going to organize a new year’s party or go to a party organized by friends, here is one dirty trick that will give you amazing, long-lasting results! I did this a couple of years ago and it was an absolute blast. I’ll be setting this up once more this year.

The idea is that you set up a camera (preferrably an old one, since it is going to be set up close to people that are partying and probably a little drunk. Don’t take crazy risks and set up a D4 with 24-70 or something.) on a tripod with a lens. Then, if you have got some kind of cool background or background paper, tape a big X on the floor so people know where they have to stand. Hang a remote attached to a wire and when people pass by, they’ll be tempted to take advanced selfies of themselves. There really isnt much more to it. The thing however is in the details.

Set your camera up in JPG Normal mode. You want the size that gives you just 1080 pixels or more in vertical. Not much more, remember we are going to edit this into a timelapse video so you do not need high res or RAW files. I use an old, beaten down Nikon d70s for this. The JPGS are perfect for this, and it is easily editable.

Set your camera to M mode, dial in the correct aperture and focal length and then put the lens in manual focus. If the scene is badly lit, add a flash. I put one old studio flash (for recycling times’ sake) on the left of the subject with an umbrella and it is perfect. People will instinctively take a lot of shots of themselves. Don’t be afraid of getting in the thousands of shots. Last newyear that I did this, I ended up with some 1,200 pictures and that was a small, small batch.

If you don’t know what to expect, just check out the video here :

New Years’ Timelapse

Okay, so let’s sum it up quickly

-Find an old camera, something you aren’t afraid of breaking
-Set it up on a sturdy tripod
-Attach a lens (preferably also a cheap one, like a 50mm f/1.8)
-Add a flash if the scene is badly lit (also the best way of freezing action)
-Find the correct exposure with the flash
-Dial in the correct exposure whilst putting the camera in Manual mode
-Dial in the correct focus focal length and put the camera in manual focus (will prevent hunting if it is dark, and if you use something like f/5.6        everything will be in focus)
-Add a sticky note on the camera that says no-one is to touch the settings (important when people are drunk 🙂 )
-Set the camera to JPEG Normal or Basic (anything that gives you at least 1080p in vertical pixels. More is useless)
-Attach a small, cheap, wireless remote that triggers the camera on a wire or string near the X you marked on the ground.
-Pop in a large memory card!
-Pop in a fresh battery pack
-Let the fun begin!

Alright, so that is basically it. Very simple as you can see but the results are hilarious. They tend to become funnier as the evening progresses. Don’t know why 🙂 . BTW, I’m the moron in the red pants in the video 🙂 Dont’t forget to bring spare batteries and memory cards, since one battery will last an average of 1000 shots (more if you disable autofocus, and put it in Manual mode). My top tip is to bring 3 with you. One in the camera and two others in chargers. That way, you’ll always have 2 batteries charging and one ready to shoot. Once it is drained, pop it in the charger, insert the reloaded one and you can keep going like that!

I’ll be back with the part-2 tutorial for this, in which I’ll describe how to create your timelapse video on the computer. I’ll post it during the second week of January, so hold on to your files until then.

Have a fantastic New Year’s Party,

And I’ll see you guys in 2014!

Cheers!

Film Photography isn’t for hipsters, it’s for the masters

Meet Andy. Andy is a 40 something-account manager with a passion for photography (or so he thinks).  He has bought shitloads of gear. He has the newest Canon or Nikon camera that came out and set him back some 3 to 5 grands. He has the newest flash, two of them actually. He’s already eyewatering the soon to be released next top-of-the-line Canon that improves dynamic range by 0,13 stops and ISO performance by 0,6 stops! Imagine that! He has to convince and bribe himself everytime he swipes his Amex card at his camera store that he really needs this to advance in his photography. He’s not sure why he’s feeling less and less happy though everytime he goes out shooting, and comes back with the same results. My dog shots should be amazingly crips, but they’re not really better than they were when I shot it with my last body.

What’s Andy’s problem? He’s fallen badly ill with a bad case of GAS. Gear Acquisition Syndrome. And he’s not alone.

The internet is an amazing place. Sadly it’s not all rainbows and unicorn-memes. This is a rough transcript (couldn’t exactly remember the exact units the person used) of a comment I found on an internet photography forum discussion about one of Pirelli’s BTS videos of their calendar shoot.

“Come on, how could you even show up with a camera like that to a cover shoot? That camera has a 4.53p/cm pixel density! At least use one that hasn’t got more than a 1.53p/cm density! And that lens, it’s MTF curves clearly show that it’s highest resolution isn’t at f/4 but at f/7.1. Noob!”

This sparked something in me. At first I was flabbergasted. Then I thought it was anger, fury, now I realize it’s the definite trace of despair. We have truly lost ourselves.

I know this sounds quite tragic or ominous, but let me explain further.

Picture-perfect Paris – A weekend shooting in the streets – Fuji x100 Firmware 2

Hi gang,

Just made it back from a quick 3-day weekend in Paris. We were out celebrating my grandma’s 80th birthday with the family.
Paris is always a lovely city to come home to. The lights, the pitoresque streets, the Seine, the cathedrals, the bistros, the boulevards, everything really. You’ll just have to live with the traffic I guess. There is a reason world-famous photographers like Cartier-Bresson, Brassai lived here and contemporary photographers like Jay Maisel and Bill Cunningham keep returning here over and over again.

Looking at the Louvre

Evidently, cleared two days for some much needed street photography. Paris, like any major city in the world lends itself perfectly to street photography. I’m a big advocate of shooting the city or place you live in, because every aspect can be interesting. However, in order for your streetphotography to be interesting, your subject matter needs to be interesting. Subject matter, evidently, are the people or things you photograph. If you live in a place that has very few, to no people, you’re going to have a bad time for street photography. That being said, photographers like William Eggleston have had incredible careers photographing the mundane everyday life. But this post is about street photography.

Paul’s backdoor?

The thing with Paris, like New York, Shangai, or any other major city in the world is that no matter where you go, there is always something happening. Every corner, subway outlet, street there is someone or something interesting. Like they say, if you line up 10 bottles on the wall instead of 1, there’s ten times the chance to hit something.

HERE, Paris, November 2013

As I said, there’s always something happening. When I’m in Paris I love to walk everywhere. Best thing to do is to take a map or open up Google Maps and locate ten hotspots in the city. Draw out a route you can follow. Why work like this? Worst case scenario, you’ll see the top spots of the town. Best possible scenario? You get some truly wonderful shots. Not of those hotspots, but of the people near them. Remember, human interaction will always best a standard picture of the Eiffel tower, no matter how pretty it looks. Remember, it is the people in your pictures making them.

Color Curiosity

We had lunch at the world-famous Café de la Paix, near the Opéra Garnier in Paris. This grand café as they call them is wonderful. The inside decoration takes you back to the roaring twenties. You can just too easily imagine yourself sitting there sipping some Veuve-Clicquot next to Scott F. Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein. Think a lot of golden arches, deep green velvet chairs, red benches and waiters in tuxedo’s. The works. If you’re ever in the neighborhood, take some time to sip an espresso (and not an eXpresso like you’ll see in a lote of Parisian cafés)
There is just something soothing in sitting there, sipping a delicious espresso, observing people and contemplating life. Sometimes, its the small things that count.

A “café de la Paix” espresso

Red Chair, Café de la Paix

Another thing that’s lovely to do is strolling along the Seine river on the Bords de Seine. They close them down to traffic during the day so that people can stroll along there.

One thing I looked forward to is testing the newly released firmware 2.0 for the Fuji X100 I blogged about in my previous post. After a large weekend of testing I can happily say that the upgrades are really worth it. The AF performance is crazy fast for the X100. It bothered me from time to time but I learned to live around it. Now, it’s just amazingly fast. The people that still complain are to me people that would never have gotten into photography in the first place if they had started 10 or 30 years ago. There was no AF 30 years ago. The first AF on the D100 was miles slower than the X100 is now so there is just no complaining to be done on this part.

A nice addtion was the improved close-up distance without entering macro-mode. I don’t use it often, but when I need to use it, I realize it too late and have to remove my eye , enter the menu and so on. The thing is, they improved the distance by some 30% and that’s like enough most of the time. To me, that’s fantastic. The close-up shot of the espresso cup was made in this mode.

Sadly, as it often tends to be in November the skies were laden with rain and bad weather. It rained every.single.day. However, like the legendary Bill Cunningham says :”Rain changes the game completely. People who usually try to look their best walking about the streets are now to distracted by trying to escape the rain.” It creates reflections. Moody situations. Shadows.

So that sums it up about. Amazing weekend, some good shots, saw Paris again which is always good. New firmware 2.0 of the X100 has been thoroughly tested and heartily approved.

Take care, and don’t forget to just walk out of the door. It’s half the work for street photography. The other half is taking your camera with you and observing life.

Cheers,

M

The new Macbook Pro Retina – One photographer’s laptop to rule them all?

Hi gang,

Quick not-so-photography-related blogpost about the new Macbook Pro Retina.

Amazing screen. Amazing thinness. Amazing battery.

I recently bought my first Macbook Pro. I had hesitated for a long time before, but didn’t think the price was worth the product. For the same amount of money, you could buy a much better windows laptop right? Not quite.

What finally caught my eye as a photographer was the release of the first Retina Macbook Pro. The price was outrageous and it was a first-generation product which meant bugs and sorts that would be ironed out in the second-generation of the product.

And in october 2013 Apple released this second-generation of Macbook Pro Retina. This time around, they dropped the price, and introduced it to the 13″ versions. I have a giant main editing tower with dual-displays so I was looking for a portable solution. Didn’t need the 15″ version but most of what I say here is applicable to it to.

The main goal was to use it for tethering in-studio and for editing on the go. Not so much retouching as this is never really practical on a laptop when you have to drag you tablet and whatnot, so I settled on editing.

What you’ll read here are my very own, personal findings after toying and working about with this laptop for the first few weeks.

13 & 15 inch. Incredibly thin. Photo by Apple

1.Design

Although I’ve unpacked new laptops before, none comes close to the minimalistic purity of Apple. The box is tiny and basic. Lift the cover and there’s your Macbook. No foam inserts, no cardboard cutouts, just clean. A thin piece of protective plastic. Lift it up and you’ll find the charger and a small booklet. Unlike all other laptops, you don’t get manuals in Philippino, Cyrillic, Portuguese and about another dozen or so languages youll never read. I’m not a tree hugger, but I always found that to be such a waste of paper.

2. The Laptop

When I first lifted it up I had to check the box to make sure it was a Macbook Pro and not a Macbook Air. It is incredibly thin. The power vs package ratio is AMAZING.
I ordered a custom configuration to suit my photo-processing needs. I loaded it up with 16Gb of RAM, 256GB SSD and a 2.6Ghz processor. One of the biggest complaints I had about the device was when I was ordering. NOTHING is upgradeable after your purchase. The RAM and battery are soldered to the motherboard. The device you order is the one youll be stuck with. At first this was almost a deal-breaker to me. Apple’s RAM and SSD are outrageously priced and I loathed the fact I couldn’t upgrade later. That means you have to heavily invest now. However, I bit the bullet and ordered.

I only understood why they did this when I picked it up.Looking back retrospectively now I understand why they are doing this. Every single internal device and piece of hardware is engineered to the millimeter to fit into this machine. That’s how they get it so compact. That’s how they manage to pack so much punch into this package. If you have to design a laptop so that every component can be upgraded afterwards, you will never be able to make such a small package.

The aluminum unibody is also wonderful. One of the things I always loathed about working on laptops for an extended time is the fact that the device gets warm after a time. This aluminum stays cool most of the time.

One definite negative thing is the few ports the device has. I understand the need of portability but this is really on the bad side. 2 USB3 ports, 2 Thunderbolt 2 ports and thats it for storage. Ill have to learn to live with it I guess. I did like the SDHC card reader incorporated. Smart move since CF cards are slowly dying out.

3. The Screen

THE thing that persuaded me to upgrade was the screen. Retina displays with 2560×1600 resolutions are fan-freaking-tastic for photo editing. The Macbook delivers on this perspective. Colors are lovely and crisp-sharp. Incredible. Editing in Lightroom is an experience like no others on this machine. There’s really nothing more to say about it. It’s amazing. They got rid of the ghosting issues the first-generation Macbook Retina’s suffered from. Amazing.

If you are buying this laptop for word processing or such, don’t spend the dough, it’s useless. But image retouching has never been this enjoyable.

The Retina advantage is quite clear

The Retina Advantage.

4. Battery life

Another important aspect that guided my choice of laptop was battery life. I wanted a laptop that could go for hours. Be it in-studio or on location, its always handy and my experience with windows laptops was never phenomenal.
Once again, Apple blows it out of the water here. Apple says the battery life will last for 9 hours, but with the screen dimmed a bit (but not much) it lasted for a little less than 11hours whilst tethering with my camera during a timelapse sequence. A little less than 11 friggin’ hours. Amazing.
Once again, looking at how the Macbook is engineered, its only because it is non-user replaceable that they manage to obtain this. They cram bits and pieces of battery everywhere.

5. Mavericks OS X

The biggest change was definitely going to be the adaptation to Mac OS X.
I managed it quite well, there aren’t that many differences, and both systems work well.
I’m not going to go into a whole Windows versus OSX flamewar here, but after using it for a couple of weeks I like it. I also like Windows 8. Microsoft amped up their game and it was responsive, fast, and useful. to me both OS’es are about on the same level. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, but there is no clear winner.

The only thing I noticed is that lightroom seems a little for responsive on OS X, but that’s no scientific test. My observations.

However, as a product, the Macbook IS superior to almost all the Windows laptops I’ve worked with.
Yes, they are more expensive. Yes, they are less and less upgradeable. Yes, you can get a better setup for the same amount of money probably.
But then there are the advantages of Apple.
OS X only has to take a finite number of hardware pieces into account. There are only 3 processors, RAM types, graphics cards and such that are used in their hardware. This allows them to optimize their operating system for that hardware in ways Microsoft can’t even dream. They are doing a great job, but its a race they cant win. They have to be compatible with millions and millions of software bundles, hardware pieces and configurations. It is impossible for them to optimize it they way Apple does.

Then there is the device itself. The construction, battery and such. These work wonderfully well for this laptop.

All in all, is this the best laptop? Nope. Not at all. If you only need a laptop for word processing or such, you’ll be much better of with a 500$ windows laptop.
Is this the best laptop for photographers? I do believe so. The screen, OS integration, battery life and such are perfect for us. It is more expensive, but the quality is unparallelled.

Heartly recommended.

The Fellowship of Fuji – Lord of the Cameras

In February 2011, Fujifilm released the long-anticipated Fuji X100. It was the first step in Fuji’s future towards reconquering marketshare with their fans.
They quickly developed a close-knitted fellowship that loved their X100’s. When I first got it as part of a sponsoring/testing opportunity from Fuji, it was a quirky camera to say the least. Weird AF that was ungodly slow and -even worse – not always accurate, slow workflow, excruciatingly slow writing speeds, the list was quite long. However, over the weeks and months that followed the camera’s release, firmware upgrades slowly but surely improved the camera substantially. I’ve loved mine since day 1 because I very quickly accepted it’s faults and just worked around them. As I’ve often said before, I believe you should know your gear intuitively inside-out, so you know the faults and can work around them. This surely beats buying a new camera every so and so.

However, time went by and 2 years later, in February of 2013 Fuji released the follow-up model to the X100, the X100S. It was esthetically the same camera. It had the lovely time-aged metal body – the Leica-look as some call it – but the internals had changed. Fuji actually listened to their customers and upgraded the AF system, added buttons where they were needed and worked on almost all of the reported problems. It’s actually quite refreshing to see a company of that size listen to it’s users. Fuji calls it the ‘Kaizen’ philosophy, meaning that things get better along the way. Their way of saying that unlike Nikon and Canon, they’ll continue to work on your (older) camera.

X100 users witnessed the release of the new camera as a thing to upgrade to. Surely the improved AF system, speedier overall responsiveness of the camera and new X-Trans sensor would be interesting right? But what about the users that had to learned to work around the quirks? I personally didn’t feel the need to upgrade, and thus spend more money on what  was essentially the same camera for about 70%.

Traditional camera manufacterers like Nikon and Canon would have pushed you to buy that new camera. How? Very easily : discontinue support for older models, stop publishing RAW treatment instructions for software developers and so on… It has to be noted that Nikon or Canon also almost never provide firmware updates for their cameras. The only time they do this, is when they are required to because there’s a problem with the camera. In the 4 years I’ve had my D300S there has been 1 firmware update, that helped a problem almost no-one had. They didn’t add anything to the camera as such. Providing firmware updates, and thus expanding the lifespan of a camera isn’t in Nikon or Canon’s business strategy because it would lower their income-revenue from the sales of new cameras that don’t really offer anything worthy of an upgrade other than a higher series number.

The Chess Players, Antwerp, 2013, X100

Enter mid-October 2013. In a move that defies eveything we had grown accustomed to in the camera industry, Fuji released a major firmware upgrade for existing X100 customers. That’s right, 2 years after the initial release of the X100, and AFTER they launched the follow-up model, the X100S, they still released an incredible upgrade for their ‘old’ users.
Firmware 2.0 dealt with some complaints and ideas users had had, but it amazingly added a whole bunch of functions :

-X100 users had always complained about the manual focus on the camera. It was slow, there was no focus peaking, in short : it was unuseable. When the X100S was released, all these problems had been dealt with , Focus Peaking was added, the slow ring movement had been addressed, manual focus was now useable. X100 users realized that they would be stuck with the bad manual focussing abilities and that they were just going to have to upgrade to the X100S. Then, fuji did something unparralleled. They added all of the X100S’ features to the X100. We now had focus peaking, highlight warning, the slow ring movement issue had been addressed, in short : manual focus was useable, just like on the X100S and for free!

-Another big complaint users had was that the close-focus abilities of the X100 were not great. Firmware 2.0 repaired this, and increased close focus distance by 30%. They didn’t have to do this, yet they did.

-The startup time of the X100 was a bit slow, so they upgraded it. Amazing.

-They also addressed a number of smaller issues, i’ll spare you the (boring) details about that.

The Artist, Antwerp, 2013, X100

Why is this amazing? Because in the era of continued product launches and planned obsolescence, in the era where manufacterers only want to make profit and usually don’t care about their old userbase, Fuji continued to pay engineers to work on a product that would not generate any future earnings for them. They actually spent money to satisfy clients that wouldn’t increase their revenue.
A normal manufacturer would’ve probably just released the X100S and encourage their X100 owners to make the switch, and thereby increase their sales.

Let’s be very clear : Fuji was not obligated to do this. The X100 wasn’t perfect, but buyers knew the problems it had. The camera worked perfectly fine, albeit with some quirks, but it worked. Fuji was just so set on satisfying their user base that they didn’t stop developping a product that had already been replaced with its follow-up, but also was 2 years old.

“Oh, but you are just a Fuji fanboy, Nikon and Canon do this also”. Let’s be clear ; I am not a Fuji fanboy, if anything I considered myself for quite some time a Nikon fanboy but their recent business strategies and camera releases are making less and less sense to me, and they are become a bit to greedy in my honest opinion. I understand the economics of running a profitable company and the need for increased revenue to satisfy investors, but when you operate in an industry that has customers that are very attached to your products, you always have to treat them with respect. And that is something Nikon and Canon are losing quickly.

The D600 ordeal proves this very clearly. For those who aren’t familiar with this, I’ll explain very briefly : Nikon released the D600 in september 2012. Very quickly new users began noticing an increased amount of ‘sensor dust’ : little particles that latch themselves onto the sensor. While this isn’t uncommon, the D600 suffered significantly more from this than other camera, indicating a clear design fault. Industry-professional tests revealed that there were actually tiny particles of oil from the shutter mechanism and mirror latching themselves onto the sensor. A clear construction error. Nikon however, instead of offering free repair services for the users, quickly discontinued the D600 and introduced the D610. Evidently, the problem had been fixed, but this wasn’t advertized as such. They added some bogus, less than marginal upgrades in order to convince D600 users to switch.

Follow the Water, Antwerp, 2013, X100

Here’s where they lost me, and here is why I respect Fuji even more. Fuji’s camera wasn’t broken. Yet, they continued to work on it, in order to improve it substantially. Nikon’s product was broken, and they didn’t even try to fix it. In an attempt at getting more money from their users, they just released a new camera.  Firmware 2.0 put the X100 right next to the X100S. There are still some differences, like the sensor, but all the quirks and faults that could have pushed X100 users to upgrade were dealt with, and I (and many others) don’t see the point in upgrading anymore. Fuji won’t receive any more income from me (at least for this product) yet still they paid engineers to work on my product, and that is am-a-zing.

Why have I written a lengthy blog post about this? Because this spectacular move from Fuji might be the first one that shakes up the industry.
Nikon, Canon and other brands are releasing new products every bloody month or so. Their product catalog is filled with cameras that are basically the same, and sometimes it looks like they just release updated models with less that marginal upgrades just to keep busy. In doing so, they lose my respect, and I think I’m not alone.
Fuji, even though they are releasing far fewer models, they have managed to conjure up a fellowship of loyal customers for their products. I’m really impressed by Fuji’s products, and the love they pour into them.
When I first received the X100 I though it was going to be a fun little camera, but nothing more, but is has rekindled my love for e.g. street photography, and since then I take this little camera everywhere I go. It has changed my perspective on photography, and my perception of Fuji.

Urban Hiding, Antwerp, 2013, X100

But it has also changed my spending habits, and that’s good for Fuji and bad for Nikon. Whenever I buy a Nikon product, I’m terrified because I fear that they’ll release some altered version of it very shortly after. Usually, I’m right. My concern isn’t that it will be a slightly better version of my product because I’m a big believer that vision is more important than gear, but that Nikon will drop support for my product. So I wait, and I read, and I compare. And that’s bad for Nikon. I might stumble on an alternative. On a better product. I lost confidence in them so I see what others are offering.
With Fuji, I know that whatever product I buy is going to be supported for a long time. Sometimes, the lifespan of my device might even double. When I want to buy something Fuji I don’t hesitate. I go in, I buy, they make a well-earned profit. They have earned my loyalty, and they’ll make a bigger profit in that, that in the extra revenue from 1 item I have to buy from them because I need to upgrade.

In the end, I think Fuji and other companies that have the same business model based on customer loyalty and mutual respect will win. As we’ve learned, a fellowship is stronger than separated individuals. Fuji is planting seeds and cutting trees responsibly, whilst Nikon and Canon are deforesting the Amazon forest only to be stuck one day with a huge stockpile of trees and no takers.

Packing for Sri Lanka

Hi guys,

So I’m off to Sri Lanka for the next couple of weeks. Atlhough I’m a severe advocate of avoiding GAS-syndromes, and not overthinking your gear, that definitely doesn’t mean bringing the wrong gear, or not enough gear. You gotta pack for what you’re gonna shoot. For street photography, a single lens and camera body is more than enough. When you’re going on a long travel, far far abroad with very little shops that can help you in times of need, you got to think ahead.

I’m restricting myself to 1 backpack. My usual Lowepro Slingshot wasn’t going to be enough for this trip, so I used the Lowepro Fastpack 400AW. Incredibly pack that holds a ton, is waterproof and durable.

Sri Lanka is an amazing place. It’s relatively recently opened up to tourism after a 30 year long war conflict. It’s a little island right off of India and it’s name used to be Ceylan. It was a british colony for hundreds of years, and still is the official Queen’s approved tea-purveyor. It’s also home to some of the most amazing landscapes and natural attractions in the world.

Sadly, therefor, it also requires a vast spectrum of lenses. I’ll give you a rundown of what I’m taking with me here:

Camera Bodies 

–Fuji x100 : Why an x100? Those of you who follow my blog will have noticed that I’ve grown quite fond of this camera. Amazing lens, amazing sharpness, amazing high iso performace, amazing design and all that in a small package. It’s going to be perfect for when we go out, or walk around town and I don’t feel like carrying my larger, bulkier dslr. It’s such an amazing camera because it’s the first small camera that doesn’t feel like I’m trading off image quality to get a smaller package. I still have that amazing quality I’m used to with a dslr. It allows you to take those shots in moments that matter due to it’s ultra-silent shutter, That’s enough to get a place in my bag. I have no doubt whatsoever that this camera is going to get a lot of action in Sri Lanka.

The battery doesn’t get a lot of shots (300 approx) so I’m bringing a spare. Thankfully, the x100 uses an NP-95 battery. I won’t go into the whole generic/brand name batteries, but I’ve ordered a two-pack of generic eBay NP-95’s for 9.95$ (shipping included) and they get almost the same number of shots out than the 50$ Fuji brand battery. It’s a risk, but never had a problem.

I’m using the Sandisk Extreme Pro 95 MB/s cards with this one. The original firmware was a bit slow in writing images to cards so I chose Sandisk’s best SD cards. They aren’t cheap but their performance is amazing. Fastest cards there are from them, lifetime warranty AND you get their Image Recovery Software for FREE! If you’re a frequent blog reader, I’ve written about this software that saved my life in New York here 

–Nikon d300S : Nikon surprised everyone by still having the D300S as their flagship DX dslr in the lineup after 4 years. It’s no wonder since it’s still an incredible performer, but with the rate camera builders devise up new iterations of roughly the same camera’s it’s surprizing. Mine is just over 100k clicks, and still works flawlessly. Travel photography is ony of the domains that actually benefit from the DX crop factor. I wanted to restrict myself to 3 lenses, and my longest is a 200mm which effectively becomes a 300mm on this body. It’s light, can take quite the beating and keeps on going. Perfect for travel photography.

I plan of doing a lot of timelapses there, and like many of their pro-level cameras the D300 has a built-in intervalometer. Super, super handy. I’m only taking one EN-EL3E battery with me, which will be fine for light daytime shooting since I usually get about a 1,000 shots from it.

Lenses

–Sigma 10-20 f/4-5.6 HSM DC : This Sigma’s been with me for a long time. It’s one of the first lenses I purchased, and it’ still as incredible today as it was then. It’s been with me all over the globe from New York, to Paris, to Antwerp, to Thailand, to Vietnam, to Cambodia and others.
At the time of purchase, it was the widest lens available for Nikon. The only other lens available was the Nikon 12-24 f/4 as the 10-24 hadn’t come out yet. 2mm on the wide end of DX is important, because it turns into 4mm, so I chose this one. Never regretted it. Color and contrast are top notch, center sharpness at f/4 is amazing, so what does one really need else? I rented both 10-24 and 12-24 (not the 2.8) to compare them and see if I needed to upgrade but didn’t feel amazed. 10-24 is pretty much the same. 12-24 is slightly (marginally) better, and it has a fixed f/4 aperture which is way better but those 2mm’s are of more importance to me anyway.

–Nikon AF-S 28-70 f/2.8 ED :  A lens that really doesn’t require an introduction. Before Nikon released the handicapped 24-70 f/2.8 it was Nikon’s most professional mid-range zoom. It’s a gold-ring lens indicating the pro-grade. But lifting it once reveals its real pro-grade status. It’s a beast (which is also it’s nickname). It weighs in at about 1 Kg (for the rest of the world, for america that 2 pounds). Like all pro-grade lenses sharpness, contrast and color are top-notch from 2.8 (that why you buy the lens right?)
Nikon released the crippled AF-S 24-70 in 2007. Crippled? Yes, they removed the aperture ring from it. If you are a film shooter like me, this is critical, because now that lens is useless on 90% of film cameras. Reviews indicate it is marginally better on some aspects, but due to the abovementionned reasons, it’ll never be for me. For all the rest, it’s basically the same lens.

–Nikon AF-S 80-200 f/2.8 ED : Once more, a lens that needs no introduction. Before Nikon revamped their ‘Holy Trinity’ lenses for digital, this one ruled the kingdom as well. The current version has some improvements I read, but not enough to make me switch. All you need to know about this lens is that it’s amazing in construction, color, sharpness and bokeh! Portraits taken at 200mm (300mm on DX) at f/2.8 are just out of this world, and that’s just what I need for a trip to a heavenly place like Sri Lanka. Like it’s 28-70 it is built like a tank, and it weighs about the same. Most of you might consider this overkill for travel photography, but the images and the bokeh you get out of this lens is out of this world. To me, it’s more than worth it.

 

That’s it! Those are the 3 lenses I’ve taken with me. I made no compromise on image qualiy, as the 3 of them are top notch. When you are going so far, you only get 1 chance to get the shot, and I won’t let a little weight hinder me from getting that shot!

Accessories 

–Nikon MB-D10 : Normally , I wouldn’t bother with this on a travel trip. It’s heavy (made of metal) and makes the camera even bulkier. As you know I like to travel light during the day to shoot, but this was a requirement specifically for this trip. I’m planning on shooting a lot of timelapses over a couple of hours, and that results in literally thousands of shots. Any series of timelapses are in between 3-4000 shots. I wouldn’t be able to get those without this battery pack and here’s why : This grip accepts 3 types of batteries : The standard EN-EL3e, 8 AA batteries and the Nikon EN-EL4A battery. That’s the most important part.

–Nikon EN-EL4A batteries : I’m taking 2 of these bad boys with me. These are the pro-grade batteries that go into the D2, D3 and D4. They are stupidly expensive (listed at 175$ on Nikon’s website) but they get almost 4,000 shots in one charge. That’s right, that 4 times the shots a normal battery gets and that’s the reason I’m bringing them on this trip. They require a separate charger, which I hate because I’m going to be taking 3 chargers on this trip just because of that. However, these batteries will allow to let a timelapse run for a couple of hours without interruption, and that’s quite essential if you want quality timelapses.

–Sandisk Extreme 32GB SD cards : CF cards are dead. They were king when SD cards weren’t reliable/fast/large enough for our needs, but now every single one of those criteria have been filled. They are crazy cheap compared to CF cards and are actually more secure since the good brand cards (like Sandisk) are mostly waterproof. You don’t have the gazillion tiny holes where the connectors plug in. Also, no risk of bent connectors (something I’ve had twice). The advantages are plenty. Check out the test DigitalRev tv did. They plunged 2 SD-cards (1 generic and 1 Sandisk (not even Extreme) card) into an aquarium for 1 month and tested them afterwards. The Sandisk performed flawlessly, the other was dead.
I’m using the normal Extreme cards, not the Extreme Pro’s since they are cheaper, and the Pro’s are useless in my D300S.
As you know I’m adament about knowing the gear you have inside-out instead of upgrading and this is one of those things. The write/transfer speed of the d300S tops out at around 30-35mb/s which is largely enough for the Sandisk Extreme’s 45Mb/s speed. Using a 95 Mb/s card in this camera is useless. For the price of 1 32GB Extreme Pro card you can have 2 32GB Extreme cards. When you hear people say storage has become dirt cheap, this is what they mean. 1 32GB card like this will run you a measly 25$. Get 4 and be set for a couple of years. Enough said.

–Remote Release Trigger : Just a generic, no name trigger that allows me to have shutter speeds slower than the built-in 30 seconds max. Comes in handy when shooting waterfalls,or long exposures of say 5 minutes and such. Nikon has one, I believe it is the MC-30 and it is ridiculously expensive. It’s about 150$ and it does the exact same thing as 20$ eBay triggers, especially since most pro-level Nikon dSlr’s have built-in intervalometers. Seriously, I wouldn’t bother with the Nikon one. You can lose your eBay brand 7x for the same amount of money.

–B+W 110 ND Filter : This is a spectacular filter. It’s a whopping 10 stop ND filter that is so dark you can’t see through it when you hold it up to the sun. I find these to be the right price/quality tradeoff compared to LEE filters and such. It’s around a 100$ for the 77mm version, which is what I’m willing to pay for a filter. B+W make amazing filters that are free of color casts and such. It’s a winner.

–VisibleDust 1.6 dust swaps and cleaning liquid : I’m not going to miss shots because there are some dustspecs on my sensor I can’t get of by blowing on it a bit. These weigh nothing and are great.

–BlackRapid Sport : Simply put. The best strap ever made. When my dslr has the 28-70 or so mounted it weigs in at about 2 Kgs, or 4 pounds. This would destroy your neck with the normal neck-strap. The BlackRapid makes your dslr feel like a compact camera. Enough said.

–Gitzo Aluminum tripod : Long exposures and timelapse only mean one thing : stability. This is tripod-only territory. This one is long and lightweight. For travel, I prefer an aluminum, ultra-lightweight tripod, not the kind you’ll find in most studios. It’s relatively small so I can strap it onto my backpack, that means no hinder at all.

So that’s about it. It seems like a lot of gear, but 3 lenses and a couple of acces’ really isn’t if you think of it. Not bringing a laptop and such on this trip, don’t reckon i’ll need it.

Take care, and see you guys in 3 weeks!

Cheers,

Morgan

My Street Photography photos are on tumblr!

Hi gang,

Over here in Belgium the weather is finally clearing up a bit which means it’s more enjoyable to go out and do some street shooting!

Just a quick heads up, I’ve noticed an increase in traffic on the blog (thanks!) and have gotten a few questions as to where exactly I upload my street photography.

I have my normal portfolio (www.morganmoller.com) for everything that is fashion, portraiture and editorial work. I also have a separate portfolio for my street photography (http://morganmoller.tumblr.com/) .

It’s separate, because I feel street photography can’t be put in one single category. I also update it much more regularly than the other one, usually on a daily basis. I also like the feature that allows one to subscribe for automatic updates, that’s why I chose tumblr.

So there you go, go out and shoot some more, then head over to morganmoller.tumblr.com 🙂

Cheers & Happy Snapping!

M

Street Photography is the hardest branch of photography / Cartier-Bresson still teaches us every day

They often say the juice has to be worth the squeeze right? We’ll it’s something I have found is quite true, but not applicable to street photography. If you’re going to live by that adage you will not succeed in your voyage into street photography.

I’ll start by discussing my first steps into street photography and where I am at on my path now. This will be a rather lengthy post, so if you’re in a hurry, mark it for ‘read later’.

My modest start in street photography started like many others during one of my travels I believe. I remember being fascinated by the differences in everyday street life around the world. Once you start witnessing specific scenes in foreign countries you really notice that you don’t have quite the same things at home. Is this bad? Not at all, because it’s this innate diversity that makes street photography interesting.

In the beginning I was lugging along my Nikon dslr, along with at least two lenses. I didn’t go out shooting very often because bringing all that gear was annoying and I couldn’t do it always, but I loved every single time I did.
I also remember vividly that that was the moment I began researching the subject. I bought books, watched documentaries, read stories. All the greats passed by : Cartier-Bresson, Doisneau, McCurry, Erwitt, Frank, Meyerowitz, Maisel, too many to enumerate. I was fascinated. How had they managed at capturing such amazing street shots? I remember the first time I saw Cartier-Bresson’s photograph of the man sitting on the street with his dog and I was stunned. Everything was right. The geometry (notice how all the important lines in this photograph are long vertical ones? That’s no coincidence) is the pure joy of it Cartier Bresson has often said. And then there was the subject matter. That man and his dog, the photograph had not could have been timed better. Had he really stumbled upon this? I didn’t believe it for quite some time, arrogantly thinking that he had to have asked the man to stay like that.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Man in the street with his dog, New York, 1932

It wasn’t until about a year later and several documentaries that I realized that this had been a coincidence, and that this is one of the reasons HCB is the greatest street photographer of the 20th century. I learned so much thanks to him that I don’t know where to start. I’ll address some of the most often-heard criticisms about street photography to start.

1. Street Photography is pure luck, there is no effort behind it.

Half of this sentence is correct. Street photography, in its purest form is 90% luck. 90% ? Why not a 100% ? Well because you have to make yourself receptive to luck. If you never leave your apartment, or house, you can have HCB’s own personal Leica, your photos will suck anyway. They’ll be the dullest pictures on earth.
Cartier-Bresson never hid behind the fact that street photography is luck. When asked about his famous shot of the man jumping over the puddle behind the Gare St. Lazare in Paris he said that the picture was literally pure luck. He hadn’t seen the scene, he had stuck his camera in a hole in a fence and snapped a few shots without being able to look through at the scene. He quickly adds ‘But everything is pure luck in photography”. He is completely right, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t putting in effort. If he had been in his apartment he would have never gotten that shot.

HCB, Behind The Gare St Lazare, 1932.

This is also one of the reasons street photography is the hardest form of photography. The incertitude of result. When you are doing a studio shoot where all of the elements (subjects, lighting, gear, etc) are in your control, the prospected output is almost always certain to a degree. You are the master of the scene, if something doesn’t work out you have nobody to blame but yourself majorly. This is not true in street photography. Each time you step out of your door with your camera, you are NEVER sure to come home with a worthy shot. That uncertainty is the single, hardest part about photography. Dedicating your time to something with no certainty of outcome. Would you get up early each day, dress, go to work without being sure if you were going to get paid? I don’t think so. Yet, this is what each street photographer faces each time they step out.

Take the following into account : Cartier-Bresson shot for about 40-50 years. His oeuvre is incredibly large, however he is perhaps known for a grand, absolute maximum of 100 images. 100 images is still an enormous amount, his most famous photographs must hover around maybe 20 images. 20 images. Yet he was a professional photographer for about 40 years. Can you imagine how he must have felt?

I often encounter people when talking about photography who ‘love’ street photography. However, they criticize it with the argument, it’s pure luck. Then I ask them how often they go out and shoot street photography. Then the large sighs come. ‘Pfff, I don’t know. Once a month, once every 3 months?” And when I see their images it doesn’t surprise me. The best pictures always come from the people who go out shooting often. Then you’ll hear them say “Yeah, but nothing ever exciting happens when I go out. If only I lived in Cartier-Bresson’s time, I would go out shooting everyday and I’d have fantastic images.”
The arrogance in these excuses really annoy me each time I hear them. It’s basically saying that HCB was a lazy, lucky photographer. He most certainly was lucky, but he also most certainly wasn’t lazy.

See, in order to be lucky, you have to put your mind and body to it. HCB travelled the world. He rarely spent a long time on the same spot. He would pack up his bags and go LOOK for interesting images. He didn’t merely await their arrival. You have to chase them.

Going back to our guesstimate that 20 of his images are world-widely known, and that 50 of his images are very famous. They have been shot during a 40 year-ish careerspan. That’s around 1-2 images PER YEAR.  That’s right. For every year or so he worked, he has one famous image to show. Could you live with those numbers? Are you willing to pay the price? Does this mean however that he only shot 1 or 2 pictures a year? Evidently the answer is no. He shot thousands and thousands of pictures. Can you image how many times he got out, shot pictures in the street and had nothing interesting to show for it? Also keep in mind that this is in the analog film time. Shooting, even useless shots cost you money. In the digital age, you can shoot 1,000 pictures for 0 $. Are you willing to do what it takes?

As I stated before, street photography is 90% luck and 10% effort. It would be foolish to think that famous street photographers never stood still. It’s impossible to always the shot after your first snap. Sometimes you have to try again. One thing I learned as a street photographer is that things, events happen in patterns and repeat themselves. If you see a scene, and a person walks in a certain way, with a certain gesture it’ll either happen again pretty soon, or it won’t ever. Most of the time however, events repeat themselves. That’s why you have to always be on the lookout. “Ce qui est important, c’est de voir” HCB said.
In an era sadly fading away, photographers had things called contact sheets. For those unfamiliar with analog photography, contact sheets where sheets of film on which small ‘thumbnails’ of your pictures where printed. Since no-one printed every picture of their filmroll due to the cost of that, they printed one contact sheet which showed them a reduced version version of all the pictures on your filmroll. This was a source of incredible information, since it showed you the different versions of a shot. You could see what the differences where, and guess as to why a photographer chose a specific shot and not another.

The MAGNUM photo agency released the contact sheets for a specific roll of film by HCB upon his death in 2004. That contact sheet was invaluably rich in information about his workflow. It provided us a certain insight into the masters mind. It also showed us something incredibly interesting. HCB’s famous shot of the cyclist passing rapidly through a street is incredible. The geometry in the photograph is amazing. All the lines work. Everyone thought his was a pure chance, a piece of luck. Once again, it was but only to a certain degree. The contact sheet showed us that HCB had tried some 10 times to obtain that shot. With other cyclists, passers-by, pedestrians and such. He then chose the best one out of all those other ones and it became this incredibly famous image. He rest of them never saw the light of day.

HCB, Paris. Luck isn’t always the key

Steve McCurry who is one of the most world renowned National Geographic photographers estimates he has approx. 800.000 negatives in his archives from his days as a film shooter. 800.000. How many pictures of him are world known do you think? If you are back in the 20-50 range you are spot on. His most famous image is the Afghan Girl but he’s made so many more amazing pictures. Are you willing to go to squeeze hard enough for the juice?

Steve McCurry, Afghan Girl, Afghanistan, 1984.

Returning on the subject of interesting images and people complaining nothing exciting happens where they live. You are wrong. If you’re not seeing anything interesting you are not looking hard enough. You have to see the interesting in the mundane. When you look at the work of great photographers like HCB you’ll notice that his most interesting images happen everywhere. It’s not because something is shot in India that it’s more interesting than a shot in Paris. That being said, part of HCB’s success is that he was EVERYWHERE.

As I stated before, he travelled extensively, and therefore managed to have pictures of all around the world. Once again, are you willing to squeeze hard enough for the juice?
Travelling, putting yourself in situations you are not familiar with increases you chance of getting ‘lucky’. It’s not a certainty in any way, but it won’t hurt. Travelling is also great when you’ve extensively shot your surroundings and are becoming ‘bored’ with it. Nothing like a change of scenery to reinspire you.

I’ll give you a few tips, pointers if you like to help you on your street photographic journey.

1. Don’t expect anything. 
Once more, if you are an impatient person, you won’t succeed. What’s that saying? If you don’t have any expectations you can’t be dissapointed.”This is why it’s the hardest branche of photography.Cartier-Bresson said ‘Il ne faut pas vouloir il faut esperer.’ This is not a guaranteed risk/payoff. My biggest problem with street photography is that I can’t be out there every single day and I know we I’m missing some amazing shots. Life doesn’t stop when you walk into your house. It keeps going and that’s what’s so amazing about it. You can hop in and out like a bus. This brings us to another point. As i said before, how many times do you think HCB went out in his 40 year career to capture those 100 iconic images?

2. Always be ready to shoot. 
Chase Jarvis said the best camera is the one that’s (always) with you. While he’s partly right, don’t read any excuse to be lazy into those lines. While an iPhone is great, it’s not the best camera. Printing out large prints based on the sensor won’t prove very good. Instead, always carry a small camera like a Canon GX. I myself always carry my Fuji X100 with me. It’s the most amazing small camera I’ve owned. It’s small, versatile, and the sensor image quality is amazing. It’s like having a miniature dslr in your pocket.

3. Don’t worry about the lenses , one is fine. 

The Fuji X100 has a fixed focal length of 35mm (equiv.). Has it stopped me from taking it out and getting amazing images? Evidently not. Don’t see it as a problem, see it as an opportunity. Train your eye. Work around the focal length. Fresh shooters tend to forget your feet are the greatest zoom you’ll ever have. Don’t hesitate and get in close. Capa said that if your photos aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough. The man is right. And he was a war photographer. If you can’t afford a small camera, don’t let that put you back either. Just grab your smallest lens (like a 50 or 35) snap it on you dslr and throw it in your everyday bag. Get you kit so small as possible.

4. Even when you’re not shooting, train your eye. 

Fortunately eyes are not like cameras. Their dynamic range is amazing, they don’t need fresh batteries or cleaning. Even when you don’t have a camera, when you walk around look for interesting images. Frame them with your eye. You’ve got to make yourself receptive towards images. Wait for that mother and child. Doens’t matter you don’t have your camera, if a moment like that happens again you’ll be able to recognize it, instantly know how to frame it and shoot it perfectly.
Ernst Haas was a world famous photographer who also held workshop classes. One day he had two women in one of his classes and both were vivid Leica afficionados. Haas himself had worked for years and years with the legendary cameras and got quite fed up with the two of them bickering about which one was the best. He burst out saying : “Leica schmeica! It doesn’t matter which camera you use, the important thing is to see’

5. Get inspired. Find a theme. 

It’s easy to get overwhelmed with images you want to duplicate. Don’t think your streets are less interesting then HCB or McCurry’s streets? No, their pictures reflected their era. Do the same for yours. You won’t likely find a lot of women dressed in corsets or high hats in the streets, but that’s okay, you don’t need that. Just reflect your city or life through your lens. Clothes are objective, your vision is subjective. Put your mark on your photographs. What can also help is to find a theme. Zack Arias focused on people who were so obsessed with their phones and handheld devices they forgot the world around them that hadn’t stopped. The series is great and really shows something. It’s inspired. Do the same for yourself : find something that fascinated you and make a series of it. Be selective on the editing, and show your best images.

Conclusion

As a general conclusion, I’d say that if your images are to dull do something about it. Get of your ass, don’t be lazy, and most of all don’t be arrogant. You can’t expect something amazing to happen everytime you walk out of the door. Be patient. Be Impatient. Be ready. Always have a camera at your side.

Cheers,

MM