Two photos from my Island Mother photo series in 2012 were added to the gallery.
Losing Interest
These days I’m losing interest in cameras. Maybe it’s similar to a farmer who loses interest in his pitchfork?
Sure we got to know how the basics of using agricultural tools if we happen to be farmers. But farmer doesn’t wake up in the morning thinking of his shiny new pitchfork and spend his time polishing it, right?
Like the farmer dreams of the good harvest, photographer dreams of the perfect picture. The creation itself is simply the thing. It should be.
Indeed I feel sick about the capitalism that exists in the world of photography. Camera is nothing but a light-proof box. So use whatever you have!
Magnum Contact Sheets
I recently bought the latest edition of Magnum Contact Sheets (2011, Edited by Kristen Lubben). This (huge!) book is a landmark, perhaps one of the most important photography publications out there.
Contact sheet used to be a common tool for photographers when reviewing their work; it allowed photographers to see a quick overview of the images they had shot. This first draft reveals the thought process and work method of the photographer since the original sequence of the exposed film is preserved.
Indeed, contact print is something intimate that photographers are not usually willing to show. Quoting Henri Cartier-Bresson (from page 18), “A contact sheet is full of erasures, full of detritus”, and that “A photo exhibition or a book is an invitation to a meal, and it’s not customary to make guests poke their noses into the pots and pans, and even less into the buckets or peelings..”.
I wasn’t particularly interested in seeing the mistakes of other photographers, but more I wanted to see the flow of images that existed in original film, I find there is something very beautiful and human in the process and how the mind of the photographer works. A perfect marriage of the analog workflow and human subject..
The book starts with iconic images of Cartier-Bresson in Seville in 1933, and chronologically walks the reader through the century of great photographic culture into the present day. The written stories and descriptions by the photographers themselves are fascinating to read; here are many amazing, moving stories here. I am especially touched about description of Marilyn Silverstone’s life, she was the only woman photographer to record Dalai Lama’s arrival to India in 1959 and became Tibetan Buddhist nun in the later years.
And then there is the iconic picture of the lone protestor in Tiananmen Square.
But Magnum Contact Sheets is not only a record of famous images with historical importance, it’s a record of the art itself. On the latter pages there are even video stills, and screen shots of the thumbnail images on computer screen.
It will be interesting to see how this book will develop in future as more and more photographers switch to digital.
I really recommend this book to anyone interested in photography or the human subject.
Happy New Year 2013!
Remember friend, life is not infinite. But you are.
Happy 2013!
The Least Comfortable Solution
Since the current situation is that Silverfast 8 has issues with serious contrast shifts when scanning in higher resolutions in Mac, I resorted into the least comfortable solution; installing the software in Windows 7. Luckily I have Windows 7 installed on bootcamp partition.
According to Silverfast support, apparently the contrast does shift in Windows 7 version of the software as well but it is less dramatic.
They told me that the new version of the software (which should have the issue fixed) will be released in first days of 2013.
Now, looking forward how scanning in Windows 7 goes.
Regarding current version of Silverfast on Mac
Looks like we mac users just need to wait for the fixed software. This is the reply I got from LaserSoft Imaging:
Dear Jaakko,
the framework set we have for internal testing at the moment still shows the issue with
the different exposure value for 7200dpi. We have no installable test version of this at the moment. (…)
The final version that resolves the issue for 7200dpi is – as far as I know – still in development
on Plustek’s side.
Update December 19th:
So I asked to confirm whether they can confirm whether 3600dpi resolution scanning has the same issue. I got a swift reply:
the current driver version shows the different scan speed and the difference in brightness also for 3600dpi scans. We have a driver that works correctly up to 3600dpi, but sometimes shows the issue for 7200dpi.
I asked could I have that driver so I could at least scan with 3600dpi, the answer was no. So I asked when will the fixed software become available and got this reply.
I assume, that we will include it in the next update, or the update after the next one. This may be within the next 3 or 5 weeks.
I would certainly like if this would be included in the next update.
Therefore it seems that at present, mac users have no access to the higher resolutions.
Business Card
Past years I have had a series of business cards, all featuring my “birdie” logo. The previous versions of my business card have titled me as “visualist”, a general word that refers to my visual work in broader sense, mostly of course web design, 3D graphics and such. It could be even said that “visualist” do video, which I have done, although not quite enough.
However, since I have ran out of my business cards, it’s time to make a new one. I thought I will just go ahead and write “photographer” in it. Honestly, I am somehow a bit ashamed to call myself as photographer since I still feel I’m a total beginner. Even in formal sense, I’m just a photography student at the moment.
But it wouldn’t make much sense to write “student of photography” to the business card, now wouldn’t there?
I solve this dilemma by admitting that I will never be quite finished with my studies, any real photographer would say so about their own career as well; it’s a journey. So I hope you’ll forgive me.
Police Work
I love Leonard Freed’s comment regarding his contact sheets in Magnum Contact Sheets “Police Work”:
“Contact sheets are mostly a waste of money, I find. 99.9 per cent of the frames on the contact sheet are mistakes one makes while photographing. Because it is a waste of money, I love them. There are things in life we must do just because we find them unprofitable”.
I couldn’t agree more.
Marking the Way
Saito Hisao’s article “Marking the Way” in latest Yokohama Seasider moved me. The people I’ve met in Dark Room Intl. never seize to surprise and humble me. Like Mr. Saito said in his article, some of us beginner photographers are lost, and some don’t even see that they are lost. Myself I know certainly how lost I am, so I think in that sense I’m lucky; I know I’m standing somewhere, but don’t quite know where, and that’s really terrible, huge problem for me.
I certainly, deeply hope that instructors in NYIP are honest and make their best effort to show me my location, like a GPS satellite. I can draw my own roadmap but in order to do that, I need to know my coordinates.
My Kind of Image
You know the word “utsukushii” 美しい , in Japanese. The word is composed of Chinese letter that has a component of sheep.
I love this word. It’s as lovely and big as music of Vangelis, it’s innocent and pure like a white sheep lying down on green meadow. It is a word I want to use to describe women, the wonderful creatures who live on this planet despite it’s horrors.
I have always believed in feminine aspect of humans, even men are kind of women, you know, kind of like ocean. Like Björk would sing in her song Mutual Core, perhaps the planet itself is feminine, trying to manage the tectonic plates to counteract distance..
Our beautiful, beautiful, feminine planet..
Yes, I think Japan needs more mature imagery of femininity; and I predict that advertising machine in Japan is going to change to reflect the need. I think I’m speaking for everyone if I say; we are crying and dying for something more spiritual. The need is there and it’s huge.
I would like to be there when the change happens.