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4 hours ago, meanderingemu said:

 

You were showing a celebration, euphoria.  Don't forget you need to make life easy for the News Editor to tell the story they want to tell.  The whole world was watching you guys, you gave them that angle of crazy...  Blur might not work for a sombre protest, but for this it tells the story.

 

 

one of the thing I had to learn after my first few  is control my anxiety about missed opportunity.  

 

I've had anxiety about missed opportunites, and then realized there will always be another momentous occasion, another protest, another rally with a star politician, coming down the pike. Especially now, with the world in turmoil. So I just let it go and follow the few stories I can and want to.

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13 hours ago, The Blinking Eye said:

I come from the art world, and value abstraction, beauty and subculture, which are not priorities in the news world. So bending my brain toward news photography takes some rewiring.

 

Henri Cartier-Bresson.

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1 hour ago, spacecadet said:

I think that's an exhibit of Arbus's own work.  Those shots were mostly square.  Arbus used a Rolleiflex for her work from what I've read.   I couldn't find anything on line about her curation of an exhibit of news photographers.

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I would like to add that I think it is a mistake to believe that "Time is of the essence" and above proves my point with talk of

Bresson and Arbus.  The reason that they have been mentioned is because of the quality, humanity and social illustration of

their work.  Yes time is of the essence if you are working for AP, DPA or a newspaper, but if you want to be known for your

images and for your images to be licensed over and over, then it is more important to carefully select, prep and caption your

images. I personally would rather loose a couple of newspaper or web licenses and to have images uploaded that will license

over and over for decades.

 

Yes there are times when it would be smart and appropriate to quickly select and caption a very small number of images of a 

breaking event of global interest, but those are rare.

 

I am afraid to say that it is to easy to fall into "Garbage in, Garbage out" and I do try to remind myself to try not to fall into that.

FYI I keep my main images under my name and I have pseudonym for similars, variations or images that I want on Alamy because

I feel that may be licensed.  

 

What I have written above is not intended by me to be criticism of anyone,  It is just my own opinion and how I try to work.

 

Kristin,

 

No the "good old film days" were a lot less work.  I had a E-6, K-14 lab (1 1/2 hour process and mount), my favorite bar, where I had

a light table that they kept for me and a FEDEX drop off station all on the same block South of Market in San Francisco in the 80's.  I

could drop my film at the lab, walk to the bar, have a perfect vodka martini.  The lab would bring over my processed film and with 

another martini I could select my chromes and package them up in caption envelopes and put a coaster over my martini and drop

the film in a FEDEX envelope at the station and back to my martini.  There were also many days when you just shot and shipped the

unprocessed film.  Scanners and digital cameras ruined everything with time spent at the computer instead on sitting in a nice bar

drinking perfect vodka martinis.  My liver is happy for digital though......

 

Chuck

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Chuck,

 

When I was practicing law, I remember the first time a client asked me to fax over a motion to him and called me an hour later to see where it was. Because we could now fax something nearly instantaneously, he completely ignored the fact that I first had to do the research, frame an argument, dictate the motion, have my secretary type it up (really dating myself here -we're talking mid-1980's), proofread it, write a cover letter, have my secretary type that, and then get it out for him to look at. Just because the technology is fast, it doesn't mean we do the human stuff, like thinking, any faster than we did pre-tech.

 

In fact, within a decade, I had a computer in my office and had to type up my own first draft. Which made things slower, not faster.

 

Similarly, the fact that we can take an image quickly and see it on the back of our cameras does not mean it's ready instantaneously, we still need to cull, to caption accurately, to process from RAW to jpeg (though whenever I shoot an assignment that is time sensitive I'll shoot jpeg and RAW so I can use the jpegs without the need for additional processing, but have the RAW file just in case).

 

When I began taking photographs, it was on FILM. I was working as a freelancer for a couple of local magazines in Northern Westchester and a a couple of newspaper groups in southern Westchester County, NY.  It was 2005. The magazines used a lab up in Katonah and the newspapers one down in Port Chester. I remember thinking maybe it would be easier if I had a digital camera so I wouldn't have to run film up to Katonah and down to Port Chester the same day - I could just email the photos. Big mistake.

 

I got a cheap digital camera, the photos were awful and I quickly realized the hour plus of driving was nothing by comparison to the time I'd need to learn how to make the most of those digital images. I waited until technology improved, which happened quickly, and saved up for my first Nikon D70, took classes and remember fondly how much easier it was in the old days to hand an editor a roll of film and simply have to supply the captions when they faxed me the story with the layout. I'd been working as a freelance writer for a few years at that point, and before law school had spent a year as a reporter and photographer for a suburban paper, so getting the info from participants at news events, or for lifestyle pieces, to provide accurate captions was a piece of cake. Much more time consuming to shoot 100 images in rapid succession, pare them down to 5-12 fully processed and captioned for an editor to choose from. If you are shooting a roll of 20 or 36 there's a lot lest wasted time and energy.  I mastered exposure in my first high school photo class because I had to - film was expensive for a kid. Back then I was using my dad's old Yashica rangefinder and the light meter thingy inside it was broken so I studied the exposure recommendation charts on my rolls of Pan-x and Tri-X and it became second nature. 

So, I shot some film in the almost old days...But I didn't get a martini. Usually had to pick up my daughter from school somewhere along my route. 🍸

(I saw the wine in the other thread  so I wanted to size my drink appropriately 😎)

Edited by Marianne
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On 18/11/2020 at 19:55, MizBrown said:

Arbus used a Rolleiflex for her work from what I've read.

Yes she did, but she's actually often pictured with a huge heavy Mamiya C33 with flash, about the only high profile photographer that I've ever heard of that used one. Many of her famous pictures were taken with that, presumably because she liked to be able to change the lenses.

 

"When we think of an Arbus photograph, it will probably have been taken with a Rolleiflex, or else with a Mamiya C33, to which she upgraded in the mid-sixties, and which also adopts the square format. This meant a lot of baggage. Arbus was as slight as a pixie, but one acquaintance recalled her lugging around “two Mamiya cameras, two flashes, sometimes a Rollei, a tripod, all sorts of lenses, light meters, film.”

 

Excerpt from "Portrait of a photographer" by Arthur Lubow, reviewed here:

 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/06/06/diane-arbus-portrait-of-a-photographer

Edited by Harry Harrison
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2 minutes ago, Marianne said:

Harry, I remember my mom taking me to MoMA to see an exhibit of her work when I was a kid. It was a revelation. 

I'll bet it was, what a great memory. There are a lot of pictures of her in Central Park, by Tod Papageorge I think, with this huge heavy Mamiya and flash round her neck.

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6 hours ago, Marianne said:

Chuck,

 

When I was practicing law, I remember the first time a client asked me to fax over a motion to him and called me an hour later to see where it was. Because we could now fax something nearly instantaneously, he completely ignored the fact that I first had to do the research, frame an argument, dictate the motion, have my secretary type it up (really dating myself here -we're talking mid-1980's), proofread it, write a cover letter, have my secretary type that, and then get it out for him to look at. Just because the technology is fast, it doesn't mean we do the human stuff, like thinking, any faster than we did pre-tech.

 

In fact, within a decade, I had a computer in my office and had to type up my own first draft. Which made things slower, not faster.

 

Similarly, the fact that we can take an image quickly and see it on the back of our cameras does not mean it's ready instantaneously, we still need to cull, to caption accurately, to process from RAW to jpeg (though whenever I shoot an assignment that is time sensitive I'll shoot jpeg and RAW so I can use the jpegs without the need for additional processing, but have the RAW file just in case).

 

When I began taking photographs, it was on FILM. I was working as a freelancer for a couple of local magazines in Northern Westchester and a a couple of newspaper groups in southern Westchester County, NY.  It was 2005. The magazines used a lab up in Katonah and the newspapers one down in Port Chester. I remember thinking maybe it would be easier if I had a digital camera so I wouldn't have to run film up to Katonah and down to Port Chester the same day - I could just email the photos. Big mistake.

 

I got a cheap digital camera, the photos were awful and I quickly realized the hour plus of driving was nothing by comparison to the time I'd need to learn how to make the most of those digital images. I waited until technology improved, which happened quickly, and saved up for my first Nikon D70, took classes and remember fondly how much easier it was in the old days to hand an editor a roll of film and simply have to supply the captions when they faxed me the story with the layout. I'd been working as a freelance writer for a few years at that point, and before law school had spent a year as a reporter and photographer for a suburban paper, so getting the info from participants at news events, or for lifestyle pieces, to provide accurate captions was a piece of cake. Much more time consuming to shoot 100 images in rapid succession, pare them down to 5-12 fully processed and captioned for an editor to choose from. If you are shooting a roll of 20 or 36 there's a lot lest wasted time and energy.  I mastered exposure in my first high school photo class because I had to - film was expensive for a kid. Back then I was using my dad's old Yashica rangefinder and the light meter thingy inside it was broken so I studied the exposure recommendation charts on my rolls of Pan-x and Tri-X and it became second nature. 

So, I shot some film in the almost old days...But I didn't get a martini. Usually had to pick up my daughter from school somewhere along my route. 🍸

(I saw the wine in the other thread  so I wanted to size my drink appropriately 😎)

Marianne,

 

It looks like you understood what I wrote.  I was hesitant to write about the bar, but in the 80's I really had the Lab, Bar and FEDEX lined up and it was great.

For clarification, I was never a wire photographer, tried but it was not my forte.  I tend to look for illustrations of current and ongoing issues, that is why 

Alamy is a good fit for me, although I do contribute to the other two major agencies (libraries).  I also believe that there is too much pressure to get the

images out and not enough pressure to get the images right and to understand their context.  Again just my opinion.

 

Liked your reply.

 

PS when I started with a very small daily in Washington state in the mid 70's, I had a PENTAX Spotmatic , no meter, and a HONEYWELL "potato masher" flash.

 

Best,

 

Chuck

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22 hours ago, Chuck Nacke said:

I would like to add that I think it is a mistake to believe that "Time is of the essence" and above proves my point with talk of

Bresson and Arbus.  The reason that they have been mentioned is because of the quality, humanity and social illustration of

their work.  Yes time is of the essence if you are working for AP, DPA or a newspaper, but if you want to be known for your

images and for your images to be licensed over and over, then it is more important to carefully select, prep and caption your

images. I personally would rather loose a couple of newspaper or web licenses and to have images uploaded that will license

over and over for decades.

 

Yes there are times when it would be smart and appropriate to quickly select and caption a very small number of images of a 

breaking event of global interest, but those are rare.

 

I am afraid to say that it is to easy to fall into "Garbage in, Garbage out" and I do try to remind myself to try not to fall into that.

FYI I keep my main images under my name and I have pseudonym for similars, variations or images that I want on Alamy because

I feel that may be licensed.  

 

What I have written above is not intended by me to be criticism of anyone,  It is just my own opinion and how I try to work.

 

Kristin,

 

No the "good old film days" were a lot less work.  I had a E-6, K-14 lab (1 1/2 hour process and mount), my favorite bar, where I had

a light table that they kept for me and a FEDEX drop off station all on the same block South of Market in San Francisco in the 80's.  I

could drop my film at the lab, walk to the bar, have a perfect vodka martini.  The lab would bring over my processed film and with 

another martini I could select my chromes and package them up in caption envelopes and put a coaster over my martini and drop

the film in a FEDEX envelope at the station and back to my martini.  There were also many days when you just shot and shipped the

unprocessed film.  Scanners and digital cameras ruined everything with time spent at the computer instead on sitting in a nice bar

drinking perfect vodka martinis.  My liver is happy for digital though......

 

Chuck

 

I am sensing some contrariness in that you have told me three times that I am incorrect. But it was you who said,

 

"The world of news magazine photojournalism use to be photographers working under difficult conditions, working with chrome film (25 to 400 ASA) in cameras that you had to focus and determine the best exposure in fractions of a second.  Then the photographer had to figure out how to transport the unprocessed film and information about what was photographed to their agent or publication."

 

but now you are saying it was a breeze...

 

That's cool. Your stories are fun. I am writing an essay right now about warehouse subculture in South of Market San Francisco in the 80s, so it's interesting to read this snapshot.

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17 hours ago, Marianne said:

Chuck,

 

When I was practicing law, I remember the first time a client asked me to fax over a motion to him and called me an hour later to see where it was. Because we could now fax something nearly instantaneously, he completely ignored the fact that I first had to do the research, frame an argument, dictate the motion, have my secretary type it up (really dating myself here -we're talking mid-1980's), proofread it, write a cover letter, have my secretary type that, and then get it out for him to look at. Just because the technology is fast, it doesn't mean we do the human stuff, like thinking, any faster than we did pre-tech.

 

In fact, within a decade, I had a computer in my office and had to type up my own first draft. Which made things slower, not faster.

 

Similarly, the fact that we can take an image quickly and see it on the back of our cameras does not mean it's ready instantaneously, we still need to cull, to caption accurately, to process from RAW to jpeg (though whenever I shoot an assignment that is time sensitive I'll shoot jpeg and RAW so I can use the jpegs without the need for additional processing, but have the RAW file just in case).

 

When I began taking photographs, it was on FILM. I was working as a freelancer for a couple of local magazines in Northern Westchester and a a couple of newspaper groups in southern Westchester County, NY.  It was 2005. The magazines used a lab up in Katonah and the newspapers one down in Port Chester. I remember thinking maybe it would be easier if I had a digital camera so I wouldn't have to run film up to Katonah and down to Port Chester the same day - I could just email the photos. Big mistake.

 

I got a cheap digital camera, the photos were awful and I quickly realized the hour plus of driving was nothing by comparison to the time I'd need to learn how to make the most of those digital images. I waited until technology improved, which happened quickly, and saved up for my first Nikon D70, took classes and remember fondly how much easier it was in the old days to hand an editor a roll of film and simply have to supply the captions when they faxed me the story with the layout. I'd been working as a freelance writer for a few years at that point, and before law school had spent a year as a reporter and photographer for a suburban paper, so getting the info from participants at news events, or for lifestyle pieces, to provide accurate captions was a piece of cake. Much more time consuming to shoot 100 images in rapid succession, pare them down to 5-12 fully processed and captioned for an editor to choose from. If you are shooting a roll of 20 or 36 there's a lot lest wasted time and energy.  I mastered exposure in my first high school photo class because I had to - film was expensive for a kid. Back then I was using my dad's old Yashica rangefinder and the light meter thingy inside it was broken so I studied the exposure recommendation charts on my rolls of Pan-x and Tri-X and it became second nature. 

So, I shot some film in the almost old days...But I didn't get a martini. Usually had to pick up my daughter from school somewhere along my route. 🍸

(I saw the wine in the other thread  so I wanted to size my drink appropriately 😎)

 

I used to shoot motion picture film and take it to the lab and I was in love with everything about it, including a large image created by a beam of light passing through a tiny celluloid frame. It all changed mid-way through film school, and the process moved radically away from crafting shots and story, from coaching actors on character motivation, from designing lighting styles and art direction, from exploring meaning and emotion...to learning software. Learning lots and lots of software. ProTools, Avid, Audacity, HTML, Sonic Solutions, FInal Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, Photoshop, etc etc etc. All my time turned to that and that was not what I signed up for. The whole thing became about computers and technology. There was almost no room left for creativity or craft. It was devastating to my path as an artist.

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I do appreciate the conversation, because quality vs quantity is always on my mind. I loved the discipline of shooting film. It cost $100 to shoot a 10 minute roll of 16mm film, so you did EVERYTHING you could to get the shot right the first time. The stakes were high. With low stakes digital, people tend to put the effort into editing, sitting at a computer, which takes far more time, rather than in taking flawless shots. At least that's my experience.

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1 hour ago, The Blinking Eye said:

I do appreciate the conversation, because quality vs quantity is always on my mind. I loved the discipline of shooting film. It cost $100 to shoot a 10 minute roll of 16mm film, so you did EVERYTHING you could to get the shot right the first time. The stakes were high. With low stakes digital, people tend to put the effort into editing, sitting at a computer, which takes far more time, rather than in taking flawless shots. At least that's my experience.

Well this time I do agree with you.  

 

I wish involved with the South of Market crowd late (in the 80's), but there were some real characters down there before.

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15 hours ago, Chuck Nacke said:

PS when I started with a very small daily in Washington state in the mid 70's, I had a PENTAX Spotmatic , no meter, and a HONEYWELL "potato masher" flash.

 At that time I was using a Practika Super TL2 and MTL3 (stop down metering) with Zeiss 35mm and 135mm, plus the Pentagon 50mm, changed during the late 70's to Olympus OM1 then added the OM1n. Although it was long ago I'll never forget the OM1, they were interesting times.

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10 hours ago, sb photos said:

 At that time I was using a Practika Super TL2 and MTL3 (stop down metering) with Zeiss 35mm and 135mm, plus the Pentagon 50mm, changed during the late 70's to Olympus OM1 then added the OM1n. Although it was long ago I'll never forget the OM1, they were interesting times.

 

I loved my OM1 - got it as a senior in college for Christmas 1979 and left to take it traipsing all over Europe for a month the very next day. Then used it for a year as a reporter/photographer for a NY suburban paper before I headed off to law school. My daughter used it a generation later in a high school photo class in 2010 when they were still teaching kids darkroom techniques, in the same darkroom where I first learned photography (we graduated from the same HS). By the time she took photography at NYU a few years later, we met up at B&H and I bought her a Nikon D3000 because by then it was all digital. One of my fondest memories of her college days is spending a day wandering around Central Park shooting with her after checking out an exhibit at the Met. Like me, she still love black and white photography. Thank goodness for silver effex pro. 

Edited by Marianne
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6 hours ago, Marianne said:

 

I loved my OM1 - got it as a senior in college for Christmas 1979 and left to take it traipsing all over Europe for a month the very next day. Then used it for a year as a reporter/photographer for a NY suburban paper before I headed off to law school. My daughter used it a generation later in a high school photo class in 2010 when they were still teaching kids darkroom techniques, in the same darkroom where I first learned photography (we graduated from the same HS). By the time she took photography at NYU a few years later, we met up at B&H and I bought her a Nikon D3000 because by then it was all digital. One of my fondest memories of her college days is spending a day wandering around Central Park shooting with her after checking out an exhibit at the Met. Like me, she still love black and white photography. Thank goodness for silver effex pro. 

 

+1  And the XA!

 

https://wiskerke.home.xs4all.nl/gear/4.jpg

 

But I loved the OM4Ti most. Porsches to my 1Ds3 Hummers. Now we have tiny RX100's of course.

 

wim

edit: Oww in Lego! Kawaiiii!

Edited by wiskerke
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15 hours ago, Marianne said:

 

I loved my OM1 - got it as a senior in college for Christmas 1979 and left to take it traipsing all over Europe for a month the very next day. Then used it for a year as a reporter/photographer for a NY suburban paper before I headed off to law school. My daughter used it a generation later in a high school photo class in 2010 when they were still teaching kids darkroom techniques, in the same darkroom where I first learned photography (we graduated from the same HS). By the time she took photography at NYU a few years later, we met up at B&H and I bought her a Nikon D3000 because by then it was all digital. One of my fondest memories of her college days is spending a day wandering around Central Park shooting with her after checking out an exhibit at the Met. Like me, she still love black and white photography. Thank goodness for silver effex pro. 

 

My OM1's had a lot of use in all sorts of conditions. Only failure was a light meter, and that was quickly sorted by Olympus, then in Honduras Street, London. By the time I passed them on the leather cloth was worn and had been stuck back a few times with evostick. I did later buy on OM2, but hardly used it, preferring the OM1's. Both were used with autowinders. First lenses used were Vivitar series 1 35-85mm varifocal and 70-210, but then I changed to Zuiko primes. I classed them as the best film cameras I ever used. Then I mostly shot B&W film.

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Should be retitled as the I Love Olympus OM film cameras thread😁

 

My first SLR was the OM10 which is where I learned the basics of exposure, then I had an OM1n and an OM2SP, where I discovered the advantages of spot metering, especially when shooting transparency film and the Zuiko primes were superb.

That kit got me started professionally but was nicked and I decided to replace it with a Nikon FM2 which along with an old Hasselblad 500C earned me a living until I went digital.

Phil

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1 hour ago, Phil Crean said:

That kit got me started professionally but was nicked and I decided to replace it with a Nikon FM2 which along with an old Hasselblad 500C earned me a living until I went digital.

Phil

 

My OM kit was eventually replaced by Canon T90's and FDn lenses, 17mm, 24mm, 35mm, 50mm and 2 zooms. Still have one T90 and all the primes. The other T90 suffered from a failed LCD. Which reminds me I must sell the 17mm F4 while it still has value.

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I still have a few Zuiko primes and I have adapters to use them on my Olympus and Sony mirrorless cameras. Lovely bokeh. 

 

My OM-1 got stolen out in California but they found it in a pawn shop so I got it back for $40. Was glad my dad made me be sure to copy the serial number. 

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On 22/11/2020 at 11:42, sb photos said:

 

My OM kit was eventually replaced by Canon T90's and FDn lenses, 17mm, 24mm, 35mm, 50mm and 2 zooms. Still have one T90 and all the primes. The other T90 suffered from a failed LCD. Which reminds me I must sell the 17mm F4 while it still has value.

Ah the dreaded EEE error.  I picked up a lovely T90 a couple of years ago that was in pristine condition and it is a joy to use.. it never let me down. 

Using film taught me a lot about discipline that I don't think would have happened if I'd jumped straight into buying a digital camera.    

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