I just finished building a presentation for my upcoming class with Creative Photo Academy. I wrote about my history with Nikon, but wanted to remind anyone interested that this talk was forthcoming. Like any talk that deals with photography, I always start with the same message. Not to blow the surprise, but that message is “use the damn camera.” Using a camera is more difficult than talking about using a camera, which is why so many waste their lives watching YouTube films while lusting over the next best thing.
I met a kid once who had worn through the eyelets on his Fuji camera. He was a poor kid from a poor country, but he was out EVERY SINGLE DAY. He is the only person I have ever met who wore through the eyelets. That’s my kind of kid. Modern equipment is revolutionary and worth discussing, but it should never dominate the conversation. I will show some basic work, some work I did around the edges of my Blurb job, and a few pictures from my ongoing project. And yes, we will talk print and books.
Comments 12
Dan, will your presentation be recorded for playback? I am overseas at the moment and won’t be able to join live.
Author
Yes, if you sign up for the workshop you get to see it after.
Break a leg, Dan! The good way, not while doing one of your Roadhouse style flying karate kicks. (But that would make for an interesting Shifter read.)
Author
JUDO CHOP!
This leads to an interesting new concept: the measure of a camera’s build strength, integrity and fitness for purpose via the durability of its strap eyelets. I am all for modern techniques; we all know that taking snaps is a drag, and a low secondary purpose to talisman ownership and the flaunting of same, so eyelets are of prime importance if we desire long, safe flaunting. It would never do for anyone to suffer a public malfunction of same: writs would surely fly.
Based on that premise, would the Veblen Leica outdo the now doubly Veblen Hasselblad? It would have been good had Rolleiflex, as in TLR, managed to weather the storms of outrageous fortune and been present in such a face-off. But then, it never did have proper eyelets… or am I thinking of the competing 500 dynasty instead, or both? How time, even after decades of familiarity with something, can often render us unreliable witnesses! 🙂
Tragically, Fuji would be unable to participate in such a contest of Titans: nothing much Veblen in its bloodline. Such is life, but I’m sure there’s an oriental philosophy that takes care of similar unhappy eventualities, so all’s probably well that ends well.
Author
Yes, those eyelets get overlooked, quite a lot….
An hour and a half of old Dano talking! Do people know what they’re getting into?
Author
Probably not….
The latest news is that all film simulation (aka creative picture controls)/creative color profiles on nikonpc.com are compatible with the Nikon Zf camera and the rest of the new Nikon Z cameras. What do you think about this subject and do you use these simulations?
Author
Hmm, good question. I didn’t know they exist. NO big surprise. I am me after all. Not opposed to them at all.
No, Andreea, I don’t. But then I’m a fossil and happily set in my ways. I’m sure to be missing something, but are these ‘creative’ bandages meant for instant jpeg distribution to the impatient world out there, or are they something inserted into the NEFs, forever there either to haunt or to make one feel better about an otherwise bland little lilly?
Somebody wrote that black and white is the language of photography; I kinda dig that idea, along with the other theory that colour is all about surface whereas b/w is about content. That said, it has to be horses for courses, at least in a commercial world, but there is ever the fear that the best colour image can too easily become the finest cliché of its subject matter. Sunsets? Okay, cheap shot.
I’m trying to come to terms with the paradox that, whereas I love HC-B et al. I wouldn’t dream of hanging any of his pictures on my walls. Much the same, but in colour, my problem with another favourite, Saul Leiter. I think both men were very influential photographers, but perhaps their oeuvre lives on best in a book. On the other hand, Sarah Moon and Deborah Turbeville both have a mountain of pictures that I’d love to hang here, at home. Perhaps it comes down to subject matter, rather than just fame.
Author
I get this too. Some folks I admire but don’t need their images on the wall. I have about 50/50 art to photography on the walls at home. And am leaning more art these days.