The Shape of Things to Come

PMA is going on right now and some products have been announced. Nothing earth-shattering, but Sony is showing a non-functioning prototype of a compact, non-SLR, interchangeable lens camera in the vein of Panasonic's GF1. More interesting to me is the CompactFlash Association, who knew there was one, has announced that the newest Compact Flash Cards will have the astounding capacity of 144 petabytes. For those like me who never heard of such a thing, a petabyte is a thousand terabytes, which is a thousand gigabytes, which is a thousand megabytes, etc. To go along with this, DALSA, which makes imaging sensors for high-end medium format digital backs and other more scientifically intended equipment, has debuted a 196-megapixel imaging sensor. For now, this will only be used in aerial photography cameras, but still, you know that sooner or later those sensors will show up in medium format backs and that will push Canon, Nikon, and Sony to even higher levels of performance which will mean bigger and bigger hard drives and faster and faster processors for our computing needs. Fasten your seat belts, the ride is going to get bumpy.

Interesting Reading on Photographic Composition

George Barr has written a concise and easy-to-digest article on photographic composition for Michael Reichmann's website The Luminous Landscape. Barr breaks down the entire idea of what goes into the making of a great picture and explains everything in words and pictures. He has identified several common elements and themes that can be found in successful photographs. Some of his ideas are obvious, though they are worth repeating, while others are head-slappingly, simply brilliant. Highly recommended reading. And while you're there, check out Michael's site. It's one of the best. Go here to read the article.

World's Oldest Camera to be Auctioned!

One of the world’s oldest photographic cameras will be auctioned off in Vienna, Austria, this coming May. The camera is a Giroux Daguerreotype and was made in Paris around 1839, which is when Louis Daguerre published his photographic technique known as the Daguerreotype. The camera was made by Alphones Giroux, Daguerre’s brother-in-law from plans drawn up by Daguerre. Considering its age, 170 years old, the camera is in beautiful shape and in its original condition. It’s a pretty look at the beginnings of photography. The camera is expected to bring somewhere around $750,000.

What is Criticism Good For?

Criticism is a loaded proposition. All the various forums, blogs posts, tweets, and more have made the present generation of consumers instant critics. Unfortunately, many of the critiques take the form of a “love it” or “hate it” mentality. All too often, no analysis or reasoning is offered, just a blunt pronouncement. When it comes to art, more is needed. Especially when the artist receiving such criticism is expected to do something about it or learn from it. After all, shouldn’t that be the real goal of criticism? It’s hard to learn anything from, “That stinks!” And when the next person says, “I love it!”, the artist hearing it is even more confused.

Which opinion do you listen to? What are you supposed to learn from it? How are you supposed to improve you artwork from those comments? The first one, "That stinks!", offers no hint on what to change, while the second, "I love it!", doesn't tell you what you did right, so you can repeat it, if you choose to. Both extremes are kind of dead ends. They don't take you anywhere else.

David Ward, a British fine art photographer, wrote an essay called The Art of Criticism. You can read it here on the website PhotographyBlog. Ward’s views on criticism and what makes for good criticism are spot on and are worth reading.

Rick Loomis Profile in PhotoMedia

The current issue of PhotoMedia Magazine has a profile of Rick Loomis, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist for the LA Times, written by yours truly. Rick has spent a good deal of the last several years working in the most dangerous situations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and recently won the Pulitzer for a five-part series about our endangered oceans called "Altered Oceans." You can pick up a copy of the PhotoMedia at most camera stores in the western United States and Anchorage, Alaska and it's free. Or you can find the article online here. Rick represents the best of photojournalism, managing to capture beauty, truth, and pathos in the same unflinching images.

Roy DeCarava, 1919 - 2009

Roy DeCarava, 89, died October 27th in New York City. He and his work were closely associated with the Harlem Renaissance, urban African American life, the Civil Rights Era, and portraits of jazz musicians. He started photographing in 1946 as a sketching substitute for his painting, but it quickly captivated his interests and eclipsed painting for him. Mr. DeCarava was the first African American artist to be awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1952. His first book of photographs was called The Sweet Flypaper of Life, which was a collaboration with poet Langston Hughes, who wrote poetry as a narrative to the images.

One of the better monographs of Mr. DeCarava’s work was Roy DeCarava: Photographs. This was published in 1981 by The Friends of Photography. One of the difficulties of his photographs is that his images were printed in an extreme low key style, which was difficult to reproduce in books. He was the master of this way of printing. His photographs were dark as black velvet, seemingly bottomless, and very low contrast. The emotional effect of this was that they were moody and quiet, insightful and reflective.

In 1987, I had a chance to see a selection of his original photographs at a Friends of Photography workshop in Carmel, California. I’ve never seen prints as dark, lovely, and sensual as his images. His photographs changed what I thought photographs could look like; they were a revelation. The memory of those photographs remains with me to this day. Mr. DeCarava will be missed.

Man coming up subway stairs, New York, 1952

Mississippi Freedom Marcher, Washington, D.C., 1963

[John] Coltrane on soprano [saxophone], New York, 1963

Irving Penn, 1917 - 2009

Irving Penn died this morning at his home in Manhattan. He was 92. There are a handful of photographers that influenced me early in my life as a photographer: Edward Weston, Brett Weston, Andre Kertesz, and Irving Penn. His straightforward, confrontational approach was lean and muscular photography if ever there were any, in addition to being elegant and classy. His framing and composition was radical then and still is unconventional. He approached every subject in front of his camera with perception and compassion, but also with unflinching honesty. He was one of the greatest photographers in the history of the medium.

He is mostly known for his fashion work for Vogue Magazine and his portraits, but my favorite work of his was the "Worlds in a Small Room" series. He traveled around the world with a portable studio and a Rolleiflex camera and photographed indigenous people in their traditional clothes. His idea was that fashion exists throughout human culture and this was his attempt to capture their sense of fashion and aesthetics: their idea of beauty. It's simply beautiful, illuminating work.

In 1984, John Szarkowski, the former curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art, wrote this about Penn, “The grace, wit, and inventiveness of his pattern-making, the lively and surprising elegance of his line, and his sensitivity to the character, the idiosyncratic humors, of light make Penn’s pictures, even the slighter ones, a pleasure for our eyes.”