Will I ever get over the awkwardness of asking people to take portraits, or for their help in starting a documentary project?
Probably not, which is why I try to do it often.
It’s kind of weird, to go up to someone, or send someone a note, and ask to make their portrait. How well do they know you? How well do they know your work? Do they know you at all?
I like to think it’s flattering to ask someone to take their portrait. It kind of says that I think the person is interesting enough to inquire. It also says that I want to spend a bit of time with the person – to get to know them better.
But I’m also a guy, and sometimes it feels like the bad guy stereotypes come through when I ask someone to join me in making photos.
For documentaries, it’s really weird, because here’s someone who does a cool thing but doesn’t know who I am, or what I’ve done. That was the case with my Albion Anagama documentary. I learned after the project was done that Ken and Anne had no idea what to expect. Thankfully, they were pleasantly surprised with the outcome.
But what if they weren’t?
That’s the risk of making something: you don’t know what the participant will think. You only hope that they’ll be pleased enough to continue a relationship and work with you again.
Getting over the hump of asking in the first place? I have no idea how to solve it. I’m going to keep trying, though, no matter how much discomfort it causes me.
It’s enough to make you think about building that bunker out in the backyard and waiting the whole thing out.
Artists, musicians, religious leaders, and poets will help us try to make sense of it all, over time. In the meantime, there are photographers on the front lines of these terrible events, witnessing first-hand the terrible things that humans do to each other.
As they’re doing that, try to get out and capture something beautiful, while there’s still time. While it’s still there.
A year or two ago, I thought about doing a book called “So You Bought a Fancy Camera.” It would be for friends who had just bought a DSLR or mirrorless camera and needed to get started with the basics.
Instead, I spent my time making another book (and another after that), covering something other than how-to material, and I feel like that was time better spent.
Who needs another asshole talking about focal length?
For a long time, I used disposable cameras and point and shoots to do my photography. It wasn’t quite a hobby yet, but I used those two tools to do a lot of shooting – particularly on cross-country road trips.
But then something flipped, and I wanted to take photography seriously. I had the drive, and the intent, so I saved up money and bought my first DSLR in 2010. I saw it as an investment in a new hobby.
I get the sense that many people buying entry-level DSLRs are buying the “fancy” camera to take “better” photos.
Don’t buy a fancy camera unless you have the patience and time to do it right.
For most people, a smartphone camera is all they ever need. Point and shoots are great, and affordable.
Buying a DSLR or mirrorless camera is like buying a pet: it needs feeding, care, to be taken for a walk, etc.
But if I’m going to make this daily blogging stuff a thing, why not try another experiment? Something I rarely do?
We’re going all monochrome.
Call it another challenge. Color photography appeals to me. I respect black and white photography, especially using the magic of film. But I see the world in color, literally and artistically.
So let’s switch it up, just for fun. Nothing but monochrome.
It’s one of those rare places on Earth: the point of something, as far in as you can go, surrounded by water and stories and wreckage.
Whitefish Point, in the upper peninsula of Michigan, is just such a place. The home of shipwrecks (and a museum) on ol’ Lake Superior, it’s only bested by Copper Harbor to the west.
Imagine a beautiful white sandy beach bordering a lake far too cold for swimming, with driftwood everywhere – like the bleached bones of some mammoth sea creature. From the beach, you can look north and see Canada, just gentle bumps on the horizon, with Superior everywhere else.
Whitefish Point is one of those places that make Michigan Michigan.
A few months back, I landed on a monograph by Edward Weston, one of the greats. I appreciated his landscape work (even more so than Ansel Adams), and especially his detail work of the seascape in California. The textures, the tones, the detail. He had a knack for capturing objects like they were organic, or even human.
So I gave that mindset a try with the driftwood at Whitefish Point, along with a few photos of the scenery.
I didn’t try to match Weston’s color so much as his attention to detail: the little grooves and bends of the driftwood, the feel of the sand, the man-made desolation.
Using the Fuji X-E1’s black and white film emulation mode, specifically with the red filter, I was looking to grab the sky in a dramatic way, too. It was a warm day that day, but there was a breeze, and it felt like some storm could ruin everyone’s beach day at any moment, sweeping south from Superior.
But no storm came. Just gulls and the wind from the lake.
After some searching and some digging, I finally earned my copy of Saul Leiter’s posthumous new collection, Early Black and White.
It’s the follow up to Steidl’s popular (and delightful) Early Color monograph, which has gone through five editions since 2007. The Black and White series comes in two books, “Interior” and “Exterior.”
You can learn more about Leiter’s biography and style influences from Photo-Eye and Faded+Blurred, but suffice it to say that Leiter’s work, especially his color work, is a recent discovery in the art world. Now we get to see more of his monochromatic work.
The two-book package is nice. The slip cover is a little flimsy, but the books’ paper and quality and top-notch. Often I felt like the photos could’ve been a little larger – some of them scream to be printed 8×10″ on the page. But Early Black and White’s size matches that of Early Color, so at least it’s consistent.
Something I noticed: “Interior” doesn’t necessarily mean just photos that Leiter took indoors. No, “Interior” seems to represent Leiter’s relationships – inside his personal life, with family, friends, and kids. There are photos of relations on the streets, on walks and on rooftops.
Similarly, “Exterior” is outward-looking: strangers, city scenes, classic candid street photography. This is the classic Leiter we’re familiar with from his color work, with reflections, windows, and slanted glances of strangers throughout the book.
There are pieces of both books that I appreciate, but the “Exterior” edition recalls the Leiter that inspires me. There are a lot of photos in “Interior” that seem simple snapshots of friends at parties. I wouldn’t dare argue that these are outside of “art,” but they aren’t as moving. Sometimes they feel like filler.
There are exceptions. In many cases, Leiter makes art of of photos of friends and lovers, as above.
It’s the “Exterior” stuff that shows what Leiter can do, even if it’s not the color stuff that made him famous.
And on that, I will say that, while his monochrome work is delightful, you start to miss Leiter-in-color as you pour through each book. He makes the black and white tones do a lot of work, but they’re not as poetic as those early color photographs.
Leiter’s collection of work still surpasses most street photographers. His way of seeing the world is truly unique, and poetic, and over the course of several books his subject matter becomes truly his. Umbrellas, windows, weather, pedestrians – everyday stuff, illuminated.
I hope that these Early books are the just the beginning of the publication of Leiter’s work. The essayists hint that he always had a camera on him. It would be great to see how Leiter, through his camera lens, saw ‘80s, ’90s, and 2000s
A note on purchasing
It’s tough to figure out how to buy this book series. You can’t purchase it directly from Steidl’s website, and the Amazon listing is a series of third-party book sellers.
I found my copy through the Book Depository, a UK outfit, even though it’s perpetually out of stock. The site does offer a nice “email me when it’s in stock” option, though it took me a few tries to hit the “add to cart” button in time.
But the books arrived quickly and at a decent price, and delivery is free. So you may have some luck in finding a copy.
A nifty option: real film border scans, courtesy of RW Boyer. He has some other options coming down the pipeline as well, from the sounds of it, so stay tuned.
Added a bit of faux grain in Photoshop and used a probably-too-sharp-for-film image off the Fuji X-E1. Note, also, that’s using Fuji’s in-camera B&W filter and shooting a JPG out. So more Fujifilm than Kodak. But oh well.
While not perfect, the in-camera double exposure feature on Fuji X cameras is pretty fun to play with.
I’m using the Fuji XE-1, but the other Fuji X cameras offer the same feature. It’s nice to have the double exposure option a few button presses away in camera.
I have the double exposure mode set to the Fn button on the top of the XE-1. That way, if I’m feeling creative, I hit it and start firing away.
The camera sets each exposure at 50% opacity and layers the successive image on top of the former. You don’t get creative options like, say, Canon offers, but at least you can see the overlaid images in the viewfinder.
Making these monochrome let me focus on the shapes and design aspects of the images. I’m dealing with blocks of circles, squares, and lines, and seeing how they interact.
It’s a fun exercise without dipping into Photoshop. There’s a bit of processing on these to make them black and white, and to boost things like contrast. But all of these double exposures were created as seen in the XE-1’s viewfinder.
For a long while, black and white photography was all there was. Then came color, and the color film pioneers, and – like the television – most people went that way.
Good artists steal, etc. But really, it just gives me a reason to experiment with a new process. I’ve toyed around with black and white before, but setting out to grab specific B&W images is something new.
When I finally finish with my first roll of black and white film – that’s when things get interesting.
