There is no future in retro®
I picked up a copy of Commercial Photo Special today in the shop on professional retouching. I flicked through the Photoshop techniques but had trouble identifying the retouching as the images looked perfectly normal. In that moment it became perfectly clear that there is plenty of work for us to do.
Thanks to its lightness, the clamping technique works extremely well with the Chamonix 45N.
Most people will know Andy Summers as the guitarist of The Police, but he has also been an active photographer for many years. This is from an interview in B&W magazine:
There is always a spirit of experimentation with photography. You never settle on one particular way of working, I don’t think.
On digital:
I’m not happy with digital. I think it has been forced upon us. I shot this tour digitally with Canon gear but I was not happy with it at all. I felt like I wasn’t connected to my shots any more. Digital is so disposable and people seem to loose sight of composition and basic camera craft. They become result orientated and not into the moment. Digital is information. Film is nature. It’s the alchemy between light and silver that turns me on. That magic is not there for me with a microchip.
The film vs. digital comments are so distracting by now and you tend to dismiss anything or anyone stating them and you get into the Cd vs. vinyl thing. Also I am always uncomfortable when people over 50 years old make such statements, but I suppose those are experienced folks and the people we should ask for experience, not the 20 year olds.Nonetheless I think he makes some interesting points that resonated with me, especially the first statement and the part about becoming result-orientated. I actually think musicians have a lot of credibility because there are certain commonalities between the media that lets you draw parallels. Also in music they have had digital recording for a long time and get nobody has given up electric guitars for synthesizers (well, they tried in the 80s).
Ein kleines Ständchen? (Thomas Steinert, undated)
Interesting article (in German, but you can look at the pictures anyway) about East German photographer Thomas Steinert.
Steinert, at the time a convinced socialist, captured the daily life in the communist state with his Pentacon Six camera. As a member of the State Artists Group he was obliged to participate in exhibitions, but his photos were always returned to him unused as they were not perceived as art. He had no agenda except capturing life as it was in a fairly neutral way. Unfortunately this banality and tristesse was too honest for the state and he never gained any attention. He could not afford to print exhibition size until the fall of the wall when East German photo supplies were sold for next to nothing.
Steinert has since largely given up photography, because of the digital onslaught as he says. He made the effort to publish his book “Connewitzer Welttheater” in 2007, with photos taken in the rundown district of Connewitz in Leipzig. He is working as an extra for television productions.
PS: Apologies to Herr Steinert for the error in his first name. More images here.
The crowds cheer in excitement as Yokozuna Asashoryu takes on opponent Tochinonada in the last bout of day 8 of the January 2008 Grand Sumo Tournament in the Ryogoku Kokugikan arena.
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This is the first episode of what might be a genre-defining means of publishing and viewing photographs. Inspired by the soundscape (音の風景) and optimised for viewing on a mobile device, such as an iPod, each episode of Photosonics contains one or more photographs paired with audio footage, often - but not always - taken at the same time and place of the photograph itself.
In the first episode we join the members of the self-administration committee of a residential area in Abiko, Chiba prefecture, Japan on their traditional walk through the neighbourhood at the year end. The group is joined by volunteer residents. Together they walk in between the apartment blocks in the cold December nights with their flashlights, periodically chanting their reminder for fire safety. Curtains open in the buildings and residents wave and cheer them up, thanking them for their community efforts in the cold winter air.
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Nice to hold a Leica M again once in a while. What is even better is to see that lack depth of field is possible just like that and there are nice OOF areas to look at! I suppose several weeks with only the GRD make one forget what used to be normality. Would not be surprised if a realization of what “real” black and white can look like is next.
Posted from my iPod touch 
I suppose running out of battery is the new equivalent to running out of film. Unfortunately you cannot just buy a new roll and continue shooting, either recharge or always have a charged spare battery.
Canon DSLR has found a new home and was virtually exchanged for a GR Digital. I am enjoying getting to know this little camera.
