They call me “Jake” on the streets… because… it’s my name. I am located in the Pacific Northwest, which is just about one of the greatest places ever… if you travel around inside of it. I do things. I like to take pictures (surprise!), ride my bike, sleep, sulk, and eat. You know, human stuff. I have a bachelor’s degree in psychology, and work at a hotel… so you know… living this dream.
How did you get started in photography?
I was a curious child. My mom used to take a lot of photos of our family with old point-and-shoot cameras, and I would always chew o n them…. or try to eat them or something. Once I became a teenager, I stopped trying to eat cameras, and started using them for their intended purpose. I took a few (film) photography classes at my school, and really enjoyed all the processes involved with taking photos and printing them.
What do you like about your photography?
I don’t really like. I think it’s a little dramatic. I think I’m good at being dramatic with my photos… but do I like that? Ehhhh… The things I like about my photography are the things that people don’t get to see. Photography is and will always be (hopefully) cathartic for me.
A lot of your work focuses on nature, especially at the macro level. I love your sense of depth and layers, and your color work. Where do you get inspiration for your style/ideas?
I tend to be a fairly reserved, quiet, non-confrontational person… and so I suppose photography is my form of therapy/anger management. I feel like I’m venting when I’m rummaging around out in the freezing cold taking pictures. I feel the same when I’m editing my photos. It’s my time to be in control.
What kinds of themes do you explore with your work?
I think most of my themes (for me) are emotional in nature (get it!?). Obviously, nature is a big part of that. I consider myself an environmentalist, so a lot of my photos end up being some kind of dissonant personification of nature reflected off myself. I hope that makes sense.
Any upcoming projects or shoots you’re working on?
My work is kind of inhibiting when it comes to making future plans. I do have plenty of locations I am planning on visiting (with a camera) when I get some time. The Bruneau Dunes and Payette River are certainly within my grasp.
It seems I’ve become the “Dave Will Take Your Old Film Camera” guy.
To be fair, I did pick up the Canonet at a yard sale. The film, too (all of it expired), was a flea market grab.
I’s been a fun way to stretch the photography hobby into new areas. Yes, it’s expensive, and yes, there’s a learning curve. But what else do you do with a hobby but spend money and pick up new skills?
Missing from this photo: a Yashica Mat 124 TLR camera a friend from high school gave me. My first foray into medium format.
Thanks very much to the judges. Honored to earn that purple ribbon at my first fair competition.
I’m slowly creeping into the “show more of my work in public” zone. This fair photo competition was my first bit of outreach, besides a few local shows here and there. There are lots of local artists who have done shows, exhibits, and contests, and I’m starting to chat with them about how they go about it, and what advice they have for someone like me.
The fair’s competition was tough. The list of rules and regulations was about three pages long, and I had a mix up picking up my prints after the fair was over. I don’t think I’ll go hog wild (10 photos) like I did this year. Maybe next year I’ll pick one or two that I think will do well.
Printing the photos, preparing the photos, delivering the photos – this competition, like many exhibits and shows, took a lot of work. And treasure. Something to add to the “now I know” list.
I always describe Tycho as sounding like a day on a California beach set to music.
And not just the audio; their visuals tell a definite story. So I was pretty excited to see them last Friday in Royal Oak, Michigan, at the Royal Oak Music Theater.
For one, they don’t come to town very often. Heck, they don’t tour often. As soon as I saw they were heading to town, I snatched up a ticket.
But two, I love shooting live music, and any chance to photograph a band with such a visual vibe is an adventure.
Tycho did not disappoint. They drip with cool summer days, surf-side acoustics, and enveloping color and sound. They’re great musicians as well.
The problem? Concert goers who lit cigarettes and try to shove their way to the front row. I was second row, and felt a responsibility to those in front of me to help them enjoy the show unmolested. One 17 year old girl who tried wedging her way to the front, after a few shoves and blocks, called me “old” and said I looked like her dad. Fair enough – but you’re still not getting up front.
I’ll say I’ve never had a worse concert-going experience than I did at the Tycho show. The music and performance? Great. Perfect. The crowd? Miserable.
Still. Tick this one off the photographic bucket list.
Now that the new Cosmos series is out and in the world, it’s got me thinking about how the original Cosmos book changed my life.
I was too young for the original TV series, so the book is all I had. Later, I purchased the PBS series on VHS, and watched it through, but I did that as an adult – after the book made its impact.
The book was my cornerstone. And Carl Sagan’s voice spoke to me in ways no other author had. It taught me, at a fairly young age, to think big. Like, cosmos big.
Sagan taught me that there’s a number with 100 zeros called a googol. And that a one with a googol zeros after it was a googolplex.
He taught me what the fourth dimension meant in a fundamentally easy-to-understand way.
The book showed me what the surface of Mars looked like. A view from another planet. In a book. And it looked a little bit like home. Amazing.
Through Sagan’s stories, I learned that the ancients were figuring out that the Earth was round, well before Christopher Columbus, and that the stuff of life (not life, but the raw materials) could be made by zapping soup with lightening bolts. How cool is that?
The book was a journey through space and time, and it had a profound affect on me. I went on to read all of Sagan’s books, appreciate his fiction, and watch the original Cosmos series.
The other Sagan book that changed my life was The Demon Haunted World, which was more about myth debunking and critical thinking. I read that one as a freshman in college, and it couldn’t have come at a better time in my life.
Fast forward to now: I’m so grateful that Neil deGrasse Tyson has rebooted the series.
Tyson has all the makings of the “new Sagan.” His famous speech, above, moves me to tears just as well as anything Sagan ever said. His passion for science, and space, and education, and a space program, is infectious. Tyson makes for a good space advocate.
He makes for a good Cosmos host, too.
The final segment of the first episode, with Tyson remembering how he met Carl Sagan, was a tear-jerker. Call me sentimental, but seeing Sagan on the old Cosmos series and interacting with children on TV touched on something very deep for me. This man, who has taught me so much, and served as a sort of guide through the important idea-forming years of my life, was mortal and flawed, and has been dead for almost 20 years. But the impact he made was huge – asteroid-crater huge.
The segment also offered an important point, says Phil Plait:
It humanizes scientists and shows science as a human endeavor. It is the most human of endeavors, in fact. It is our imagination, our urge to explore, our desire to discover, and our unquenchable need to find things out.
We’re made of starstuff, sure. But presenting science as an emotional, human, and spiritual endeavor was one of Carl Sagan’s goals in the Cosmos series and book.
And that’s the idea that changed my life. Science is lofty, yes, but when you bring it down to earth and say what it really means to all of us – that the universe is a big place, and even though we’re tiny we can make meaning out of it all – it makes an impact.
So thanks, Carl. And thanks, Neil. I’m hopeful that you change someone else’s life through this new Cosmos series.
I often tell people that I get to Chicago at least once a year.
This year? It’s more like five or six.
A fun trip. Another fun trip. A business trip. A work trip. A conference. It seems I’m heading to the Windy City, on average, every other month.
And boy, I don’t mind. Every time I head to Chicago, whether for personal trips or business, it feels like a getaway.
I’ve said it before: I feel like I know Chicago better than I do my nearby metro area. That goes mainly for the downtown areas, because once I get out of the main hub of Chicago I’m not so confident – whereas in Detroit, I know the surrounding areas fairly well.
But since taking up photography as a hobby, Chicago has been one of my favorite subjects. The people, the architecture, the city life – it’s a smorgasbord of photo opps.
For a work trip back in October, I hit the streets to specifically grab more street photos than anything else.
(Most photos taken with Canon EOS M and EF-M 22mm f/2, edited in Lightroom with VSCO Film 03)
I don’t take many landscape photographs. Landscapes are lovely to see, when done right (read: not obnoxious HDR), but it’s probably the patience required that turns me off. You have to wait for the right combo of weather and subject.
But toward the end of summer, things line up just right, especially in my daily commute, and especially near where I live. The fall light, the earlier sunrises, the mist covering the fields – it’s all great for photos.
This one is a country block from my house. I caught it on the way home from the Jackson County Fair, in early August, and snapped it with my Canon EOS M (and edited with VSCO Film 04). Not bad for a little mirrorless camera with a pancake lens.
Landscapes still don’t interest me all that much, but I take advantage of the scenery when I see it.
About every year, I need a mountain fix. To fly away from our flat-ish peninsula state and land somewhere above sea level.
Luckily, I’ve kept to that pretty consistently. I’ve used mountain states to escape, to reflect – and to drive.
The driving is therapeutic, too. I take in the countryside by mostly driving through it – with little stops along the way to get out and explore.
It’s not my style to stay in any one place for very long while traveling. I hit the highlights and move on to the next thing in fairly rapid succession.
But it’s important to absorb the highlights. Especially with mountain scenery. Soak it all up.
Michigan is a fantastic state. I love living here and traveling here. Seeing the lakes and the woods and the wilderness. Michigan, though, doesn’t have mountains.
Colorado has mountains. Virtually a whole state full of them.
And every once in a while, I get the itch to see them.
After toying around with the mirrorless camera world, I got to appreciate the conveniences – what I call the throw-it-in-the-car effect. Mirrorless cameras like the Fuji X100 are light, small, and not prone to bang into things with a lens sticking out of the front.
Just $300 for a small, portable camera with a prime pancake lens and a Rebel T4i-caliber sensor. Touchscreen controls. Firmware update that speeds up the autofocus.
The only bummer? The white one was discontinued. Otherwise I would’ve (and believe me, I tried) purchased that one in a heartbeat.
As it was, with just the black model, I did think about the purchase for a few days. Did I need this camera? Would I put it to good use? Was the quality enough that I wouldn’t be frustrated with it?
No, yes, and maybe.
Camera Design
After the Canon EOS M arrived, it was pretty fun to unbox it. There’s lots of stuff that Canon packs in that box – and the minority of the material was the actual camera.
The camera itself is a solidly-built little instrument. It feels dense, but not heavy, so that it feels like a good, quality hunk of camera.
The 22mm lens is light and well-built as well, although I’m not a fan of the sound it makes as you screw it into the camera. It feels like it’s rubbing or scratching agains something it shouldn’t be.
The back screen is large and bright enough to be seen in most situations, although with screens of this type, it does get tough to see what you’re shooting in bright sunlight (more on this later).
Canon includes a thin camera strap with little metal hooks that slide into the rivets on the camera – a nice system. Putting the EOS M around my neck helped me appreciate how small and light it is.
Image Quality
Touring around with the Fuji X100, and my Canon T1i, I had weak expectations for the image quality on the EOS M.
Happily, this camera beat those low expectations handily.
Bright scenes, dark scenes, color and contrast – they’re all great, and I was shooting mainly JPGs. I found the image files flexible enough to grab the details I needed in Lightroom.
The 22mm focal length is a bit wider than I like, but it does make the M flexible for most situations: landscapes, architecture, street-type scenes, macro, even portraits. Pairing the EOS M with a quality 35mm or 40mm prime lens would be perfect for the way I shoot.
So the quality of images isn’t where this camera gets annoying. Not at all.
I felt it was a good exercise to get used to the camera, and to learn its ins and outs.
Given that, this thing was perfect as an everyday carry-around camera. I could swing it over my shoulder heading out the door, throw it in the front seat, and carry it with me wherever I went. When I did go out and shoot, it was light and small enough to not get in the way.
The pancake lens simplifies things, too. Just one focal length, with a wide enough aperture to do what I like to do. All I have to think about is taking the lens cap off.
It’s not quite iPhone camera simple, or point-and-shoot simple, but it’s more simple than choosing a lens, lugging the DSLR around, etc. My DSLR is a pro tool that gets me exactly what I see in my head. The EOS M is what I carry around with day to day that’s convenient enough to be useful.
That’s been the breakthrough for me with this camera, and the Fuji X100 before this. The portability, the convenience, and the image quality make these mirrorless cameras the equivalent of the iPad: in between the iPhone’s race car and the Mac’s utility truck lies just the right touch of Good Enough.
And, it’s fun. It’s a lot of fun to carry this thing around and just have it there, being simple, and grabbing nice images.
Camera Quirks
I’ll say that my number one issue with this camera is the random exposures it takes because of the touch shutter. In the bottom left of the screen is a Touch Shutter Enable/Disable button – but seemingly at random, it switches modes. It could be because of an accidental touch, but I get enough random exposures from the camera bumping into me that it gets annoying. Quickly.
If I could turn off that entire area of the touchscreen, I would.
Also, the 22mm lens will sometimes search endlessly for focus, especially for macro-type shots. I find that switching the camera off and on again helps, but sometimes it doesn’t and I need to take the lens off the camera.
Finally, the touch-screen buttons seem randomly and frustratingly placed. I have to stop and think about where I need to put my finger to change the white balance, say, whereas with DSLR canons my fingers can go automatically to some dial or button for instant access.
More On the Touchscreen
Yes, the touchscreen is hard to see in bright sunlight (especially if you wear sunglasses). And yes, that touch-to-take-a-phone feature is a downer for me.
Overall, the touchscreen is just a big ball of frustration. Touching to focus, so easy on an iPhone, is cumbersome on this thing. I find the focus point randomly moves around because of accidental touches, and changing settings like aperture and ISO are clunky.
And trying to focus on something below or above you, with the screen barely in view? I agree with others: make it a swivel display and you could solve a few of these problems.
Hitting the “Info” button, I’ve learned, helps to help with some of those accidental touches, since the “buttons” on the screen disappear. And pressing the delete button on the scroll wheel helps place the focus point back at center.
But trying to do all this while holding and the camera and pressing the shutter button – maybe it’s just going to take some getting use to. I find I often take too many accidental exposures fumbling with the settings and getting the camera ready to shoot.
Final Thoughts
The Canon EOS M was the first step for Canon in the mirrorless world, and with a few needed firmware updates, they’ve made their initial product a decent one – especially at $300.
I can see going fully mirrorless someday, should these cameras become as practical and fast to use as a DSLR (and if they stick around). Until then, these cameras are a lot of fun to use – and I think that counts for a lot, especially for a hobbyist like me.
Adding a nice portrait-length prime lens to the EF-M lineup would be killer, especially fast lenses in the f/2 range like the stock 22mm.
Rumors are that a new EOS M model is headed our way, so we’ll see what Canon does. I’m happy that I pulled the trigger on this first model, no matter what comes.
It’s added a new dimension to my hobby that’s been a lot of fun to explore.
