This is where the rubber meets the road!

Evaluating the print is perhaps the most important step next to actually making the photograph in the first place! Let’s face it, you have done a lot, spent a lot of time and, frankly a lot of money to get this far, and you are so, so, close. Now is your chance not to blow the whole damn thing.

Study the results of all your hard work. How? As I’ve discussed before, I place my prints on a strip of wood attached to the wall in my workroom and look at them long and hard under the same lighting I use in my darkroom to examine prints. Why look at them long and hard? If all is well then GREAT! But it’s quite possible they may not deserve to be seen … in their present form … or at all!

Now read that last sentence again, because it can be a difficult thing to accept.

I have written about this several times over the years, but it’s worth mentioning a few things I’ve said before.

The wooden strip is wonderful tool that can help you determine whether the print you made was a statement of what you saw in your minds eye and deserving, or whether it needs more work or isn’t very good after all. If the print does not capture what you meant to say or is disappointing for some technical or other aesthetic reason, that’s what the garbage can is for!  On this, John Sexton said, “I find the single most valuable tool in the darkroom is my trash can – that’s where most of my prints end up.”

Ansel Adams said, “Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.”  Think about that for a moment.  He made thousands of images most of us would die for, yet very few made the cut.  I’m not Adams so I have to be pretty ruthless … and so do you.

Paper and chemicals are expensive and your time is valuable.  A box of one hundred 8X10 sheets of Ilford Warmtone Variable Contrast paper alone is currently going for $160!  Think about how much you have spent just to get to this point. But settling for an also ran after spending so much money and time is the worst thing of all! It’s also costly to the long-term growth of your work .

So what to do? Take a deep breath and toss it; then think about My Step 17!

I promise it will be all right.

Stay safe,

Michael

Last weekend I drove to Gettysburg to photograph. The excuse was Tillman Crane’s photo retreat and to see some of my Monalog colleagues that were going to be there. So if nothing else, I could say hello and do a little catching up in a socially distanced manner. I had not been back to Gettysburg since the obligatory middle school field trip with my son that everyone within several hundred miles makes. It had been around twenty years and to be honest I didn’t remember very much of the details.

I packed up my Plaubel Makina and left early Saturday morning.  Two and a half hours later I arrived without a hitch. To make a long story short despite the virus there were a lot of people throughout the park, much of them without masks. After driving to several of the monument locations and dodging the Covid deniers, I just could not get much of a feeling for what might excite me.  So what to do?  I could easily bag it or try to make something more of my outing.

Look, there is no shame in coming home empty. I’ve done it plenty of times.  But since we were talking about five hours of driving, why not try as hard as I could to find some good pictures to make and maybe something else.  So I worked hard to find a couple of opportunities in the park and then drove into the small town of Gettysburg to see what was there. What I found were even more people. A lot of field trips and families. And again, many without masks. It was beginning to seem that the itch wasn’t worth much of the scratch, but after driving around town a few more times I found a couple of things that looked promising.  After a few hours I finished a roll of 120 Tri-X film. There are actually one or two pictures I am looking forward to seeing once the film is developed and I’ve made a proof sheet. As always I remain hopeful!

Seeing my friends for a few minutes in the lobby of the local Best Western was a treat and a real bonus, but could I do more to make this outing truly worthwhile?  Time permitting I had been thinking of making a detour on the way home to stop at Baldwin’s Book Barn in West Chester, Pennsylvania. I’ve always wanted to visit this place as it’s pretty well known, but hadn’t ever made the trip from Doylestown.  Today, as things would have it, time was permitting!

The Book Barn was built in 1822. The five-story building is packed with 300,000 used books, manuscripts, and maps as well as paintings, prints, estate antiques, and other collectibles.  If you are a used bookstore junky like me you definitely need to check this place out! It’s amazing and within a short amount of time I had become lost several times looking through all the nooks and crannies. I finally found the photography section. A few books were interesting, but not enough for me to buy. Not to be deterred, I kept looking around and stumbled onto the section titled “Artists”. There stuffed on a shelf I found a beautiful first edition of the two volume Daybooks by Edward Weston. Yes, I have the Aperture softcover reissue that combines both volumes into one fat paperback, but truth be told I had never took the time to really read them. Maybe it was the paperback format this didn’t provided the dignity the Daybooks deserved. Needless to say I had to have these two books!  I am reading them now and there is no comparison between the original hard covers and the later soft cover edition. The books are larger, the paper is better and the reproductions of the photographs are nicer!

Left the Book Barn with a smile on my face and made it home in time for diner with my lovely wife.

Not a bad way to finish off a pretty good day!

Stay safe,

Michael

Today photographers have a number of choices when it comes to mounting and matting your finished work. I’m not going to debate the merits of each approach, but will simply tell you what I do. The important thing is that you mount your prints so they are in a proper state for safe storage and for you and others to look at. Why go to all the bother if you’re going to store your prints in an old empty photographic paper box, probably never to be seen again?

Here is what I do:

1. Using my old Seal tacking iron, I place a piece of dry mount tissue the same size as my print (8×10) on top of the unprinted side of the paper and attach it by pressing down and making an “X” on the middle of the tissue sheet.I recommend using something that is pretty archival like Seal MT5, Colormount  or Beinfang, that while discontinued or not available in boxes can be found in boxes on ebay and elsewhere.
2. Next I trim my print with the attached dry mount tissue using my RotaTrim paper trimmer.In my opinion they are the best out there.
3. Now I measure and pre-mount my print onto a piece of mounting board using an old Falcon Print Mounting Positioner that looks something like a T Square and helps you position the print with more space on the bottom of the mat. Most people seem to be centering their prints on their mat boards these days, but have been doing it this way since the beginning and I think it looks better. I prefer 4-ply acid free conservation board that is bright white in color. I purchase my boards pre-cut into a 14 X 17 inch sizes, but some people choose to buy large pieces of board and do their own cutting to size, which saves some money. When I get the print into position I place a leather shot bag on top to hold it in place on the mat. Then I take my tacking iron adhere each corner of the tissue to the mat below. Now the print is securely in place so that it can be transferred to the dry mount press for permanent mounting.
4. I have a Seal Commercial 210 dry mount press I purchased used over 30 years ago, so I have no idea how old it really is. It needs a little babying but it still works well enough. I pre-heat the press to 170 degrees, which is the right temperature for the tissue I use. Then I use an anti-static brush to make sure there isn’t any dust or other particles on the print surface. I then place the print between a “sandwich” of two large 4-ply conservation boards like I mount my prints on and close the press. Depending upon the humidity level in my basement it takes about 3 minutes or so for the print with its tissue to fully adhere to the board. But just to be sure all is well I lightly bend each corner of the board to make sure there are’nt any gaps in the seal.
5. I then place the mounted print(s) underneath a large heavy metal plate so that they will cool flat.
6. I let things sit for a while. When I am satisfied the mounted prints are nice and flat I place them in an archival box for storage.

Note: If prints are good enough to make the cut, they will receive a 4-ply over-mat I will cut and permanently attach using archival tape if they are to be framed for a show or to be sold.

Stay tuned for more … we’re almost done!

Stay safe,

Michael

When it comes to photography, perhaps no subject has caused the greatest amount of angst and pushing of keystrokes for endless Internet postings than Leica … be it cameras or lenses. The focus for this entry will be Leica rangefinders and lenses.  Ah, the mythical Leica M system. These are the objects of desire that most are obsessed about. Leica single lens reflexes and associated lenses are a whole other rabbit hole to go down, yet they don’t evoke the degree of passion and mania associated with all things M.

Which rangefinder camera, what view finder frames, which view finder magnification, which film winding knob, which film loading system, what film advancing lever? Vulcinit or leatherette, black paint, black chrome or silver chrome, bronze or zinc body, what turning direction of the shutter speed dial, meter or no meter, and of course all the many special additions. Care for a Panda M6? I’m sure I’ve missed a few things, but you get the point.  Then there are the fabled lenses. Summarit, Summaron, Summicron, Summilux, Elmar, Elmart. Ah, the mystical words conjured up by German elves! What maximum aperture/model, what version, what lens coating, chrome or black, apo or non-apo, ashp or non-asph, what lens shade and of course the critical issue of bokeh quality that must be considered?

I know these can be existential matters causing countless sleepless nights for so many.

Let’s just make it simple. If you’re primarily a 50mm guy or gal then it’s an M3 for you. 35mm, then everything else is fine. If you can’t stand holding the camera base plate between your teeth while finding a safe place to rest you Leica while you load the your film spool outside the camera, then you want an M2R, M4 or later edition body. If you need a meter in your camera, then it’s a M5, CL, M6, M7 or MP. Oh sorry, for many Leica diehards the M5 and CL are really not true to Leica lineage and should not even be considered. The color doesn’t make a difference in taking a picture, but the black paint and black chrome does wear. Some people like that, some don’t. Sorry. If a few seconds longer to wind your film makes a critical difference, then an M4 or later is what you need. New or used? Etc., etc., etc.!  Then there are the lens decisions. Won’t even venture to try on this one.

Well that was simple, wasn’t it?

I own an M2 and an M3. Both were made in the 1960s.  My 35mm Summaron 2.8 and 50mm Rigid Summicron were both made around the same time. So my kit is almost 60 years old. Truth be told, I used to think about some of this stuff, but gave it all up a long time ago and I’m so much better off. You can easily get caught up in this stuff if your not careful. Yet it’s such a waste of time and a real diversion to what is really important – getting on with your work.

I don’t worry or care if there is anything better, because what I have works great and helps me make the kind of pictures I want to make … the same kind of pictures I could make with a Pentax or Nikon or Canon or Olympus or Minolta or Konica or Contax or Yashica or Topcon or Miranda or Ricoh or …

Stay safe,

Michael

I really wish I could own prints of the all the greats I admire … Ansel Adams, Paul Strand, Edward and Brett Weston, Henri Cartier- Bresson, Robert Frank, Walker Evans, Alfred Stieglitz, Eugene Smith, Elliott Erwitt and the great Life magazine photographers, and on and on. Unfortunately I’m not independently wealthy so I do the next best thing. I buy books – a lot of them, and sometimes in batches. When I search for any positives from the pandemic getting more books is one of them.  I gaze at their contents to enjoy myself, to be inspired and most of all to learn. Ok, so what’s to learn?  Well for starters how about light, composition and where to stand when making a photograph. And then about the tools those you admire used to get the job done. This can be incredibly helpful to those just starting out, to those who are confused or have lost their way, and to those that want to sharpen their seeing and craft.

In my latest buying spree among those I snagged are Elliott Erwitt’s huge volume Personal Best that contains almost 446 photographs he personally selected as his best and favorite images from a lifetime of creative work, along with Magnum Contact Sheets, a massive compilation of contact sheets of all the great Magnum photographers, and The Waking Dream, Photography’s First Century, published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They’re wonderful to look at and happen to be great learning tools for photographers at any level of experience, regardless of genre of interest. These along with a favorite of mine, Ansel Adams, Examples, The Making of 40 Photographs are but several examples of what’s available that you can use for inspiration and to up your game.  Of course anything by the greats will serve as wonderful investments that will reward you on many levels, over and over again.

So, if you don’t have a library, start one! And if you have one, see if there are any holes that need to be filled. But most important of all, enjoy these gems, learn from them, and be inspired to create your own special art!

Stay safe,

Michael

You’ve been cooped up for awhile, but maybe even before Covid you thought about it … even dreamt about it. Have you heard about Bokeh, but more importantly how much do you care about it? It’s become an omnipresent force on the Internet, and most likely it is of critical importance at most technically oriented camera clubs, along with RAW, megapixels and other digitalia. Do you worship at the altar of Bokeh, reading about it incessantly on the Internet? Have you become so obsessed that you only think about shooting wide open, which in turn causes you to make lens purchasing decisions based on how many blades are used in their diaphragms?  Worse yet, do you buy many different lenses of the same focal length so you can test them to determine which if any provide the elusive Bokeh you crave?

Do you dare to read on?

Is it properly pronounced bo-keh, or bo-key, or bo-kay? Who knows, but according to Wikipedia, the term comes from the Japanese word boke (暈け or ボケ), which means  “blur” or “haze”. It’s become an entire subject of photography. So very critical, that for many it is just as important as the subject itself. This really should not be too surprising. It enables people who really are not terribly serious about making photographs that truly matter to stay occupied in the pursuit of what they mistakenly think is important verses getting out there and doing something of real value.  If you have seen any one of the myriad of discussions out there, they are often accompanied by pictures of cute pussycats, vases with or without flowers, or the ever exciting backyard bird … all made with very expensive lenses. High art indeed!

Bokeh has become mystical, cult-like and a photographic religion.  Best I can tell it is all about the quality or “creaminess” of blurry out of focus areas in the photograph that seem to be as important as the subject matter itself. Heaven forbid your Bokeh not be soft and creamy, made up of the dreaded heptagonal shaped reflected points of light instead of smooth round circles of light that contain no hard edges!

Stop the madness already!

Do you think that Adams, Weston(s), Strand, Cartier-Bresson, Frank, Winogrand, Smith  … I could go on and on … would give a flying fig about Bokeh?  The answer is NO! Let’s think about this for a moment. When the many “decisive moments” came for HCB do think he thinking about circles vs. heptagons? NO! I am sure he used his Summicron because it had an overall look and feel he admired, but I suspect he didn’t loose very much sleep over out of focus creaminess.

For those obsessed with Bokeh it will be all right. Just use the lens you have. Its quality is probably as good or better in many ways than which was available to the great masters. So take a deep breath. Concentrate on making pictures of importance rather than worry about soft creaminess and how much you need to spend to get it.

Bokeh, Schmokeh!

You want creaminess; go get some ice cream with high butterfat content. Now that’s something to obsess about!

I think I’ll go test some Häagen-Dazs and Ben and Jerry’s! And then maybe a comparison with Cold Stone Creamery and then I’ll try …

Oh, I forgot to mention … I heard there is a new flavor taking ice cream world by storm … Bokeh Schmokeh.

Stay safe,

Michael