photography

Begging For Compact Cameras

Cortice

Bellamy Hunt at Japan Camera Hunter argues for a new compact film camera:

One of the large makers needs to step up to the plate and make a compact film camera. And I am not saying this on a whim or with a wistful idea of halcyon days. I get more requests for compact cameras than I could ever fulfill, even if I had the cameras. People are prepared to spend nearly $1000 for an old Contax or Ricoh, knowing full well that it could simply stop working at any point and there would be nothing they could do about it.

Hunt’s point – that the current stock of compact cameras is dwindling, and getting more expensive – tells me that there’s a market for a new film camera out there, if someone would just take a chance on making one. And with more and more companies investing in film again, photographers need new tools to take advantage of those film stocks.

Compact cameras are my favorite kind of camera, and I’m not alone. The company that stepped up and started making new film cameras again would gain more than money – they’d earn a whole bunch of goodwill.

(via On Taking Pictures)


Studio Open House

Tomorrow night I’m hosting a studio open house in downtown Jackson.

It’s partly to kick off my next portrait project, partly to test out the new space, and partly as a big “thank you” to folks around town who have supported my projects. Plus I have a few people whose portrait I’ve wanted to make for a while now. So, bonus.

Details at my Musicians In Jackson page. Hope to see you there.


Something Of A Legend

Best Ones Ride for Free

Thomas Fitzgerald on shooting with classic gear, like his old Canon 5D:

Coupled with a 50mm lens, it’s a great option for street shooting. It feels like shooting with a film camera in some respects. I’ve grown quite fond of mine again recently, and I’ve been shooting with it more and more lately.

“Like shooting with a film camera” – I get that, too, especially because all it does it shoot straight-up stills.


The Grind

Above All, Plant Reason

The Grind isn’t the photographs.

The Grind is the selecting your location, choosing which equipment to bring, selecting a film stock, lining up subjects, finding an open slot in your schedule, making time to send/respond to emails, editing the photos when you’re finished with the shoot, picking your favorite picture to present to the world, sending a select few to the subject, backing up your Lightroom library…

But that’s what “photography” means – it’s the photographs, and it’s the Grind to get them made.

Lately, it’s the Grind that has me feeling overwhelmed. If I can pick away at it, bit by bit, I do okay. Otherwise, I feel like I’m swimming in “photography.”

Better learn to love the Grind if you really want to accomplish that project.


Call A Plan A Guess

Pulaski, Michigan

Pulaski, Michigan

Jason Fried at Signal vs. Noise:

Busting your ass planning something important? Feel like you can’t proceed until you have a bulletproof plan in place? Replace “plan” with “guess” and take it easy. That’s all plans really are anyway: guesses.

As my old boss used to say, plan the work and work the plan.

But I take the same approach to planning as I do for traveling: set up the ground rules and structure, and then let real life interject – as it always does.