Since I was sixteen, except for some early years of marriage and impoverishment, I’ve always had my own car, even if it was a beater. But recently, I decided to sell my beloved hardtop/convertible (A very neat car … the best of all worlds!).  I did it for a couple of reasons. It wasn’t very practical which often meant I had to rent a car rather than leave my wife stranded without one. And with 16 mpg city/20 mpg highway and a hunger for premium it was costing a small fortune to keep running (The high octane stuff is now creeping toward $6.00 where I live unless I’m near a Costco).

So now we’re down to one car and I’m going to do my best to work it out with my wife so we can both be happy.  But it may not always be possible to schedule who gets it when, time I’d be gone, etc. The easy thing to do would be to buy a Prius or an all-electric vehicle … sorry not a Tesla for some obvious reasons you may think of. That means for the time being I’m going to try to make this work out despite the psychological hit I seem to be taking … my rugged individualism and independence … that sort of thing.

The key question is what will this do to my photography?  Well the short answer is not much. Why? Because I’m not going to let it!

The easy thing would be to dial things back or only photograph really nearby. While focusing primarily on what is really close might actually be a good thing for a variety of reasons, I’m just not going to let that happen. If anything, now that my car is gone, I’m going to move ahead without it being a diversion in my life that it had become, work hard to schedule things with my wife and just rent a car whenever I need one. It’s really pretty simple when you think about it.

Well, there is one reoccurring problem that seems to be popping up in the new world order. Our remaining car … my wife’s … is very nice, but very complicated … at least for me.  No surprise there!  Every setting has been set up perfectly to suit her needs and believe me I don’t want to get in the way of that. It’s got a lot of faux buttons on the very large touch screen that serves as the center of all things. So here’s a newsflash … despite my best intentions, I’ve somehow managed to screw things up several times.

Toleration probably has its limits so I’ll try to be better … I promise.

So what would this kind of change to your life do to your photography?

There’s always an excuse you can find not to get out there … like getting rid of your car. Don’t fall for them!

Stay well,

Michael

I tend to think of lenses in their 35mm equivalents. Ok, so I don’t own a 40mm lens, but I have the fabulous Plaubel Makina 670 with the stupendous fixed mount Nikkor 80mm lens. That’s the 6×7 equivalent of the smaller format 40mm lens. Yes, there are some quirks with using the Plaubel, but it’s truly my all time favorite, because of the camera operation, the lens itself and the perspective its focal length provides. But there is another reason … it just may be the perfect focal length for the vast number of subjects I’m interested in or come across … and it may be the same for you!

I’ve always considered myself a 50mm kind of guy, and historically that lens or its equivalent has been my focal length of choice. But as time goes by, the more I think about it, it seems I’ve been drawn to medium format cameras that use an 80mm lens, be it the Mamiya 7/7II or the Plaubel Makina. I’ve owned and used three Plaubels during the last 40 years, and now that camera/lens combination has essentially become my go to.

Why?

I think in large part, the single most compelling reason is that it enables me to accomplish just about anything I want for almost any situation I find myself in. In 35mm terms, there’s no thinking about whether I need to switch from using my go to 50mm for the 35, or when I’m using 35mm whether I need to go back to the 50. Of course with my Leica’s I can use both my M3 and the ridged 50mm Summicron along with my M2 and the 35mm f/2.8 Summaron. While I’ve done that many times, but found that I often seemed to finish a roll of film in the M3/50mm but not in M2/35mm, with the unfinished roll sitting in the M2 for a long time.

I’ve have gotten away from that approach when using 35mm cameras and have gravitated towards just using my M2 with both the 50mm and 35mm lenses. But here’s another problem … once I mount a particular lens on a camera, especially when I’m on the street, I tend to leave it on and adjust as opportunities present themselves rather than change lenses back and forth. In fact, that is exactly what happened a couple of weeks ago when I photographed the No Kings protest here in Doylestown. I don’t feel this has kept me from making good pictures, but maybe I could be making better ones, or doing less cropping in the darkroom for example if I switched lenses as appropriate.

In medium format land, the 80mm solves that problem wonderfully. Perhaps one of the reasons is that it turns out to be very close to the way the eye sees. A 40mm lens on a 35mm camera would do the same thing.

So where does all this leave me? I still want to be able to have the option of using other lenses when the occasion calls for them, e.g., making photographs of murals might require using both wider and longer lenses.  And I still will be using a 35mm camera as the situation calls for it, or just maybe when the mood happens to strike me.

I promise this isn’t a sudden GAS attack, but maybe I’ll find either a 40mm lens that will most likely work best with my M3 (supposedly I would have to judge composition just outside the 50mm frame lines), or get a Leica CL or Minolta CL (the camera bodies and lenses are the same … apparently they were jointly designed by Leitz and Minolta), or possibly a Minolta CLE with its updated lens. All three were designed to use the 40mm natively. Finally, I might even try a much cheaper option, but one that could work just as well sans the Leica cachet, and pick up an old Olympus 35RC with its fixed and apparently quite good 42mm f/2.8 lens. Nice ones can be had for about $150 bucks!

Fun fact … I discovered that Henri Cartier Bresson had used a CL to do a project in nearby New Jersey!

Is it a sign?

I guess you can tell I’ve started to think about this!

Trouble is I really love my vintage Summicron and Summaron lenses!!!

Stay well,

Michael

I recently stumbled across a black and white film photographer with an interesting YouTube channel. He does good work and his videos are fairly entertaining. As I was digging into his video archive I noticed he had done something concerning the importance of focusing on a single photograph … quality vs. quantity. Fair enough. He essentially went through his entire process, all the way to mounting, matting and framing.  I was fine with everything except for one important thing. He scans his negatives so he can review them on his computer instead of making proof sheets.

You might say this isn’t a big deal, but I think it is. In fact, I think it’s a really BIG DEAL!!! Look, if you’re going to be an analog photographer, BE ONE ALL THE WAY and forget about viewing your negatives using Lightroom or whatever else is out there.

Yes, I know … it’s fast and yes it’s easy to do it that way. But that’s not the point is it. Art is hard, so why look for fast and easy when you can do things slow and steady and get much more out of it? Otherwise, I think you are just fooling yourself. Our photographer spent over six hours to get the final print he liked, then went to the trouble to expertly spot the print where necessary.  Great, but why take all this time and effort, only to replace one of the most important series of steps … making the proof sheet, then carefully studying it for size, composition, cropping, print tonality, etc. ON THE PAPER YOU’RE GOING TO PRINT ON … and replacing all of this by merely staring at the screen, looking at thumbnails?

My answer won’t make those looking for fast and easy happy. Sorry, but here it is.  Don’t shortchange yourself for the sake of speed and convenience. Art is hard … at least good art is.

Stay well,

Michael

Emmet Gowin had juried a show I had submitted to right before Covid went crazy. I was excited because I wanted to see how my work would fare with such an eminent photographer. He chose a photograph of mine as one of the best in show. That was the good news. The bad news was that the show was cancelled one week later. No opening and no meeting with Emmet Gowin.

Well all these years later I finally met Emmet and his lovely wife Edith, while at the opening of Bruce Katsiff’s career multi-media retrospective at the Michener Museum here in Doylestown. Katsiff is a photographic legend in Bucks County. Beyond his important body of work created over a lifetime, he led the Bucks County Community College’s storied photography department and the Michener Museum for over twenty years. I will be going back to take in this most interesting show in a much more leisurely way when it is a more quiet.

I had never met Bruce before so this was a great pleasure! And after a very nice conversation with him he introduced me to someone that seemed a little bit familiar. Damn, it was Emmet Gowin! Ended up talking with him and sharing a few stories together, like how I had hoped to meet him before. Then his lovely wife came over and introduced herself. I told her I was familiar with her, having seen many of Emmet’s sensitive pictures of her.

All in all a wonderful chance encounter with someone I admire greatly, but also a chance to meet not only the artist but his delightful supportive life partner and muse. Perhaps I will see them again sometime.

I certainly hope so.

Stay well,

Michael

I felt like I was at a Sixties protest, complete with signs, protest songs that would have made Woody Guthrie proud and plenty of fiery speeches.  As an aside it sure is funny what people say to you when they see a nearly 70 year old camera hanging from your neck. Talked to a fellow Leica user who had two new ones attached to some very fancy straps (one new M6 for film and one very fancy looking digital number), as well as a protestor who used Nikon F’s and Rollei’s. The latter had a darkroom, shot black and white and was actually familiar with the Monalog Collective! My guess is the former scanned his negatives and printed them on an inkjet printer. Sorry … I know … be nice!

I had intended to go to the protest in Philly that day, but having just got back from Buffalo I thought it best to stay local, and I’m really glad I did!  It doesn’t matter where you are protest … just get out there and be a part of it! It will make a difference! There were over 8 million who participated this time around and I suspect the next one in May will draw an even larger turnout.

I started going to these events primarily to photograph, but the more I’ve gone, the more I’ve become a full participant. Still making photographs but getting much more involved. The good thing is you can do both … participate and be a part of something truly historic and chronicle the history that is being made!

So there you have it … short and sweet … if you care about our democracy and our proper role in the world, and you happen to make photographs, then what are you waiting for?  Get out there!  It’s the perfect thing to do!

Make some plans for May and be sure to check out the other events that will certainly take place before it.  It will be worth it! And don’t worry if you’re characterized as a communist, radical leftest or worse by El Jefe and the regime’s sycophants and Vichy collaborators. That means you’re having a positive impact! Think of it as a badge of honor!

Stay well,

Michael

This past week, my wife’s mother passed away after many years of suffering with dementia. It really is the cruelest of diseases. It robs the mind of those who suffer with it and wreaks untold pain upon those who love and care for them … in this case my dear wife who selfishly stood by and cared for her mom for almost eleven years. Now it was over. We left for Buffalo and the next day she was transported there to be buried alongside my wife’s father. Our kids came too and we all met up the morning of the burial. No funeral; at 96 years of age she had outlived pretty much everyone that knew her. So just us to say some words, share some memories and bury her.

As we started our somber service the rain started, on cue, just as the weatherman said it would. I hate it when these guys are right! Nevertheless, while we all got wet and our shoes got muddy, the service was quite touching. We ate a nice lunch together on the way to the cemetery, but that didn’t stop us from having some major ice cream before my kids left to travel back to their homes (FYI, Anderson’s is not only a Buffalo institution, but the best soft serve ice cream on the planet!). Ice cream is truly delightful thing, possessing mysterious and great therapeutic powers to make those who are feeling down feel much better. Try it sometime when you need to. Works like a charm!

After everyone was on their way, we went back to the hotel to wind down and then headed out to diner, feeling better about things. The food was great so it only made sense  to check out the dessert menu, but within seconds it was obvious we needed one more Anderson’s fix. Twice in one day, was it crazy? Of course! Was it the right thing to do? Absolutely!!

That night I didn’t sleep very well. Perhaps it was the many chocolate covered coffee beans I had with my ice cream. In any case, I thought about the beautiful pictures of my family that I had made with my mind’s eye. After a while I meandered onto the pictures I hoped to make this year with my camera and some possible new directions that hadn’t crossed my mind before. I didn’t get much rest, but it was the best night of little or no sleep I’d had in a long time, and woke up strangely refreshed.

Stay well,

Michael

Yep, again.

The last time I did this exercise was in 2021. So I wanted to do it again … well because … you know … I never got around to doing anything, even though I picked out at least a hundred or more pictures I wanted to give a second chance to. As usual, life decided to get in the way! Anyway, this time I had the old list to compare to.

Time gives you new perspectives and I was curious how I would see things now vs. five years ago. As I sat down to get started … and I hate to admit this … I saw that I had gone through my proof sheets for the first time several years before the 2021 go round. I still had that list. Same outcome. No new prints were made.

Going through my proof sheets again, I noticed there were a number of pictures that made the cut in 2021, but not now.  And then there were some that I selected this time that weren’t included in the 2021 list.

Interesting.

Hopefully the third time will be the charm, and I won’t make same mistake I’ve made twice before and actually do something!

At least that’s the plan.

Here’s some of what I wrote a number of years ago and feel I the pretty much the same way … only twice as much I guess. “The question is why do so many images I recently peered at through the magnifying loupe somehow now look more appealing than they did at first glance?  To be honest, I’m not completely sure.  Perhaps a different perspective, a new point of view, or the fact that I am older and hopefully somewhat wiser.  Or maybe I was too hasty the first time around.

I’m sure this could be psychoanalyzed, but the bottom line is that I’m not sure it really matters.  What does matter is the fact that taking some time off and then going back to the sources can be illuminating.  Just as it makes sense to study your finished prints for a while to confirm they are what you envisioned, or determine they need some more work … or belong in the trash.

There’s no shame if you find out that the circular file is the end result when looking at your finished work.  In fact the trashcan, fireplace or whatever mechanism you use to dispose of the also-rans is one of the most important tools you have at your creative disposal!  So please do go back through your old proof sheets.  Maybe there won’t be anything there, or what you end up printing may be so-so … or maybe you might be surprised to find some overlooked keepers you somehow missed the first time around!”

Still sounds good to me and I look forward to getting started! This time I hope I follow my own advice!

Stay well,

Michael