Photos About Nothing

I've been spending way too much time staring at test shots of new cameras, peering into the shadows of wine bottles and 100% crops of moving objects. Plenty of home office book shelves and backyards as well. And cats. With their tongues sticking out.

Which got me thinking that these test shots have a zeitgeist all their own. They are the trees instead of the forest, pixels not people, noise not signal, and ultimately devoid of any story or meaning other than the technical conclusions that camera buffs pull from the pixels. And the Internet seems to eat them up. So much so that it would be kind of funny to have a show of them.

You humans are funny creatures sometimes.

Photo Critique on Google +

FYI, I started a group on Google + where it's all about the photos - Photo Critique. No gear discussion is allowed and we operate by one simple rule - we ask that everyone that posts a photo give back to the community by critiquing another photo in the group. That's it. We of course expect civil behavior, but that should go without saying.

The group - Photo Critique - is small and I'd like to keep it manageable. This not a group for getting Likes and thumbs ups. While that's well and good and there are enough places online for that. Photo Critique is for people that are serious about becoming better photographers, are willing to receive constructive criticism, and those that understand that the path to better photography is not always through the gear.

I hope you join us. Photo Critique on Google +.

Pentax K-01 got a 69 on DPR...so what?

So the Pentax K-01 received a 69 on DP Review, and overnight all the K-01 photos that I've taken got 25% worse. Not.

It's a funny thing - we cheer on cameras these days like we cheer on sports teams. It's like fantasy baseball, where statistics are the only things that matter. Never mind that it's a great day for a double-header or that little Johnny is going to his first baseball game. Forget the lump in the mattress from the new glove being broken in. Forget the crack of the wooden bat as it strikes the ball and the muffled snap as it lands in a glove. Forget the love and the lore and the romance of baseball. Boil it down to numbers. Reduce it to pink slime and then build it back up into a simulacrum of a team, a vestige of a league, and call it a day. It may be interesting to the stat hounds, and may be a great way to pass the time. But let's get one thing straight - it isn't baseball. Like the name says, it's a fantasy.

Likewise with photography. I used to get as caught up as the next guy speculating over rumors of the next great camera, wondering how it's going to measure up to the other cameras, and whether or not it's a smoke signal from the manufacturer. It was kind of fun having endless debates online about these things. Each post was my chance to step up to the mic and tell the gathered dozens where I thought the camera world was going.

You know where all that forum posting got me? Nowhere. Even worse, all of that "fantasy photography" actually took time away from other things. Like photography. And writing. And working on my video chops and editing chops. And life. And January turned into April in the blink of an eye and I looked at all of those photography projects I had imagined in the winter languishing in the corner. And so I gave it up. Gave up PentaxForums. Gave up Mu-43.com. No more posts. It was fun while it lasted, and I still lurk from time to time. But that's becoming less frequent. And I'm spending more time wondering what to bring to my next video shoot. And I'm learning about multicam editing in Final Cut Pro X.

I'm still looking at cameras, but it's more pointed now. I look at them like tools, not teams. So when the K-01 gets a 69 I don't react like my team is languishing in last place (hello Phillies). I shrug it off, and appreciate that the camera does what I purchased it for - take great photos. Or at least give me the chance to take great photos. The great is up to me.

Don't get me wrong - places like PentaxForums and Mu-43.com are tremendously valuable resources. I give a lot of credit to the creators and admins for building vibrant communities. And I did have some fun. But we've each got to find our balance, and I've got to move mine away from the keyboard and closer to the shutter.

Nate and Alex

I recently shot my first roll of 35mm film in nearly 10 years. What a crazy time warp - dusting off the old Pentax MX, opening the camera back, threading the film through the spool, cocking the film advance, setting the ISO, adjusting the aperture, setting the shutter speed, adjusting the focus, and then waiting for a photo-worthy image to flit across the viewfinder. You didn't want to take just any old photo, because any old photo would cost money in film and processing, and it was such a labor-intensive art that unless you were a pro with an endless supply of film, you simply exhibited some economically-imposed self restraint.

So you went slow and hoped to get one good shot out of 36. You were psyched if you got more than that. Times, as they are wont to do, have changed and I think that I'm both better and worse for it. Better in the sense that I think that I am a better photographer than I was 10 years ago. Credit much of that to chimping - looking at a photo on the display screen on the back of the camera. That, and viewing on the computer, have accelerated the feedback loop and thus the learning process.

But I also think that I'm a worse photographer than I was 10 years ago. I think less about a single shot, instead sucking photons from my immediate surroundings into whatever camera I am holding at the time. And doing this rapidly and repeatedly, with little regard for the souls I may be stealing or the sheer digital excess I am creating. I've probably taken over 20,000 photographs this year to date. How many of them are truly memorable?

So now I think it's time to slow down - even temporarily - and get back to the basics. To think about what I am capturing, and like a marksman, to fire.

Moved, originally uploaded by john m flores.

Patterns and forms move in space.
Each a different direction
Each a different intent.

I knew that I was progressing as a photographer when I started seeing the world like my camera did. When I got to this space, I knew that the strong backlighting could create strong silhouettes.

I've recently entered this in a juried show - my first try at submitting photos for a show. Wish me luck...

Our own worst enemy

Just saw a presentation by the photographer Edward Burtynsky at TED. Burtynsky, for those of you not familiar with his work (a group which included me until last night) photographs “manufactured landscapes” - places that bear the scars of man’s impact upon the environment. Not the pretty stuff like pyramids and cathedrals and structures that celebrate man’s seat at the head of the evolutionary table. No, Burtynsky photographs the quarries and the mines and the dams and the junkyards and the factories of our voracious species. The photos are in turn ironic and eerily attractive...always thought provoking.

While watching the presentation, the first thought that formed in my head was anger towards the corporations that defiled the earth in such a manner. But even before the thought could crystalize, it occurred to me - corporations are just a proxy for our own appetites. I look around me, at the computer that I am typing on, at the radio that is playing, at the various objects of modern life that fill my peripheral vision. Each of these objects represents another shovel of dirt, another lump of coal, another pump of a petroleum well, another cloud of noxious smoke belching forth, another subject for Burtynsky to photograph.

We, all of us that live “modern” lives, are part of this machine that is changing the face of the earth. So the next time you curse at your computer screen at the latest act of corporate environmental malfeasance, look around you. Are you an accessory to the crime?