Why Even Bother?

Mrs. Dean just posted these thoughts on film, processing and scanning.

TD

Alec Soth's "From Here to There" flickr project

Photographer Alec Soth has started a flickr pool in conjunction with the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. He's provided the following list of subjects and has asked for contributions to the pool. Photos he likes will be posted of the Walker Art Center web site. Go for it.

Pilots

Amateur Paintings

Unusually Tall People

Museum Guards

Sleeping Children

Neighborhood Bars

Supermarket Cashiers

Sheep

Sedans

Suitcases

In his Little Brown Mushroom blog, he recently posted a copy of the card that he carried while photographing Sleeping on the Mississippi. The back of the card lists the subjects that he was interested in photographing. It is a very broad list. A nice weapon to have in your pocket when your asked what and why are you photographing this odd thing. It will at least get a conversation going.

Diana

The Blog "B" by Blake Andrews "This is Your Diana" for your reading pleasure.

Heso Magazine Toy Camera Article

I missed this when it was released.

The author is trying way too hard to position toy cameras within photo history and sometimes sounds a bit silly and tedious. To give you an idea of the tone of the article after stating "...do we really need all these niche luddites continuing to proselytize their anachronistic plastic lenses all over their pretentious micro-galleries while talking about expired stock with knowing smiles and carefully cultured converse sneakers." The author answers this question with a big yes but fails to back it up with any ideas.

For those of you interested in toy cameras it is worth a read.

http://hesomagazine.com/photographic/toy-cameras/

Landscape Stories

If you love photography books, Landscape Stories gives you the chance to quickly view a number of books before making the monetary commitment. More often than not, viewing the short videos makes me wish I had made the plunge. Check it out.

The Elephants

Taken with a Holga 120WPC pinhole camera. Difficult to use, but the results can be very interesting.

The Print is Dead

I run the Holga Photo Exchange group on flickr. I have to admit, that with a few exceptions it has been very difficult to get people to participate. Once I approached someone that I was interested in trading prints. They suggested that if I wanted a print of one of their photos, that I should download it and print it myself. This is when I really understood that, except in rare instances when a collector wants one, the print has no value in the digital age. The print is dead.

American Suburb X has just posted a short essay by Danny Lyon. He addresses this subject far more eloquently than I ever could. It is worth a read.

Decorating Advice

The deer head adds the perfect decorating touch.

Flash

For anyone that is looking to expand the capability of their Holga by adding an inexpensive flash unit to their bag it looks like this one might be of interest. It is powerful, has a built-in slave, and cheap compared to the major brands. Although the reviewer experienced some quality issues, it might be worth taking a look at the Yongnuo YN-560.

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2010/08/test-drive-yongnuo-yn-560.html

Red Eye

This brings back memories of the long flights I used to take while working international a few years ago.

http://niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/red-eye/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Another Spectacular Ansel Adams Find!

More news concerning lost Ansel Adams negatives! Courtesy Blake Andrews blog.

http://blakeandrews.blogspot.com/2010/08/society-of-spectacular-find.html

Pictory

I subscribed to JPG magazine for a year. It always was relegated to the magazine rack next to the toilet and always migrated to the bottom of the stack. The photos just couldn’t hold my interest and the whole concept seemed based on a popularity contest. I found it very boring. Remember the flickr posts asking to vote for photos?

Laura Brunow Miner, the former editor of JPG now has a web magazine called “Pictory”. A topic is provided each week. Readers submit photos along with a descriptive caption. Most of the captions are in the form of a short essay explaining why the photo is important to the photographer. The caption adds another dimension to the photo and I find that the tight edit and quality of the photos holds my interest much better than JPG every did. This makes Pictory a site that I’ll be going back to.

If you’re interested in participating check it out.

http://www.pictorymag.com/

Artist Statements

For anyone that is working to get their work noticed, Joerg Colberg of the Conscientious photo blog, recently posted an essay about artist statements that is worth a read and careful consideration.

Masahisa Fukase – The Solitude of Ravens

The great thing about Inter Library Loan is that you can view great photo books that might not be available in your small city library. This month I ordered Masahisa Fukase’s “The Solitude of Ravens”.

When I opened the book and started to page through it I immediately thought about a time in my life about 10 years ago. I was doing lots of international travel and the long flights gave me lots of time to think about the ending of my marriage. I’ve never felt more alone than standing on the streets of Hong Kong and Shanghai. Looking through The Solitude of Ravens I couldn’t help but feel the same melancholy. This book is the perfect visual when listening to Portishead.

Fukase photos took me on a sorrowful trip into my past. It is one of the most powerful photography books I’ve seen and one that I would gladly have in my collection.

Survey

I'm running behind schedule to look at and report on the data contained in the Holga survey. It will take several weeks to complete.

London Bridge

London Bridge

Lake Havasu City, Arizona

"The blue waters of Lake Havasu form a backdrop for the famous London Bridge - one of Arizona's major tourist attractions."

Entering Work Into Exhibitions

I'm seeing a lot of my colleagues showing their work in exhibitions around the country and I've been considering doing the same. Aline Smithson, creator of the blog 'Lenscratch", recently offered some recommendations on this subject.

Have things really changed that much in 60 years?

"Taking photographs is getting simpler and easier all the time. Most of the basic technical problems have been solved during the last ten or twenty years, and the various steps in producing the picture have been streamlined to a degree where success is achieved almost automatically. Gadgets, accessories, newly invented instruments off all kinds not only successfully substitute for the skill and experience without which no photograph could have been taken yesterday, but even lead to results which yesterday would have been considered impossible."

From "Feininger On Photography" by Andreas Feininger

chapter 1, The Making of a Photographer

first edition, 1949

The iPhone vs. the Holga

I originally posted this out on flickr in the Holga group on April 16.

I recently started to consistently use the camera in my cell phone so I thought I'd take a look at one of the most popular iPhone groups. With the proliferation of in-phone processing apps ( more than 150 are available in the iTunes store) I should not have been surprised by the popularity of the Holga treatment.

I looked at the first 20 pages or 600 images and here are my observations.

Holga treatment - 30%
Some processing - 62%
Polaroid treatment - 2%
Straight Photos - 38%

Holga Treatment - I counted square only
Some processing - Includes Holga, rectangular toy, cross processing, B&W conversions, Polaroid, HDR etc.
Polaroid - Shown with a Polaroid style border often with hand-printed legends

Being a toy camera user it never dawned on me to manipulate the photos taken using my cell phone. It seems I have to catch up with pop culture.

I think that it is very interesting that so many people love the Holga look. The thing is that many do not know what a Holga is or what one looks like. It is only name associated with a button pushed on their phone.

What happens when they walk into an Urban Outfitters and realize that the Holga is a real thing? I have a strong feeling that we’ll be seeing more Holgas on the street in the next year or two. I think this is a very positive thing.

That was two months ago. This afternoon I decided to go back and look at the flickr group again to see if there was any change in the number of modified photos. Looking at the first 600 photos the number of "straight" photos has dropped to 30%. The remainder are modified in some way. With the ease of creating and uploading these photos from the iPhone, toy and vintage camera looking photos are no longer a niche but is now firmly entranced into the mainstream.

Even with all of the faux photos, the popularity of the Holga is still growing, but not at the rate of its IPhone clones. Comparing the stats for flicker's "Holga" and "Photos Taken With An Apple iPhone" groups both are very large at more than 15,000 members. They are both within the top 1% of all flickr groups. They are very popular. Both groups are growing, ranked within the top 1% on flickr. The difference is that due to the proliferation of iPhones, the iPhone group is ranked at 30 of 16981 for growth while the Holga group is 181. There are a lot more faux photos being uploaded than real.

This is interesting for the all marketing types at the camera manufactures and marketing companies that import the products. I'm sure they are kicking themselves that they didn't private label an app so they could take advantage of the craze. They are doing their SWOT and competitive analysis trying to figure out how to adjust to the market change (there are opportunities for these manufacturers).

It's also important to lovers and users of toy cameras. We all have to differentiate our work from other photographers. "To find our own voice" is the cliché that is often used. The mainstream has discovered, can duplicate and loves the look of the Holga and toy cameras. The challenge for all of us is to produce photographs that rise above the norm and distinguish them, and the ideas behind them, from the mass of imitations.

Just another day.

I thought I would start at the beginning of my interest in photography. A few years a ago I was given a Holga before a trip. On that trip I took a lot of digital photos, but when I was using the Holga I was more aware, more focused on what I was photographing. Now I've been studying photography for over 4 years and have developed other odd symptoms such as collecting old cameras and photobooks. So here is a photo from that first outing. A fine way to start.