Month: April 2022

It feels like I am drowning

In photography, bokeh is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in out-of-focus parts of an image. The blur could be in the background, the foreground, or the mid part of the image. Bokeh refers to the quality of the blur, not the blur itself.

Many photographers misunderstand the term Japanese term bokeh. In photography, bokeh is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in out-of-focus parts of an image. The blur could be in the background, the foreground, or the mid part of the image. Bokeh refers to the quality of the blur, not the blur itself. Depending on the characteristics of the lens, bokeh can be good or bad.

I typically capture my images with the camera set to aperture priority mode, with exposure set to auto and ISO either fixed (35mm film) or assigned to a range (e.g. 160-1600). Ever since I bought my Fujifilm mirrorless camera, I have been attracted by the super-budget price tag and “look” that vintage lenses created. I still had my Asahi Optical Co. Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 55mm f/2 lens from my 35m film, so I melded the old and the new with an inexpensive adapter.

16 April, 2022 | FujiFilm X-T3 | XF27mmF2.8 R WR

The XF27mmF2.8 R WR and XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR have decent bokeh characteristics, but as you can see from the images, my 40-year-old Minolta MD Rokkor-X 50mm f/1.7 lens beats them both. I have mainly used this lens adapted to my Fujifilm X-T3, where it functions as an excellent short (76.5mm full-frame equivalent) portrait lens. I love the buttery cinematic quality of the out-of-focus area that the MD Rokkor-X 50mm f/1.7 creates at f/2. I think it's the perfect portrait lens for my Fuji X-T3. Because this lens only has six non-rounded blades, bokeh is lovely and circular at f1.7, but highlights in the background become more hexagonal once I stop it down a touch to f/2 or f/2.8.

Bokeh | FujiFilm X-T2 | Asahi Optical Co. Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 55mm f/2

When I had the radiotherapy treatment for my Graves Eye Disease, I lay in the same position on a bed below a radiotherapy machine. A tight, form-fitting face mask was gently placed over my head and neck and fixed to where my head rested. The face mask was explicitly moulded for my head and face. The treatment took up to 30 minutes and was not painful, but I had two panic attacks during my first treatment. It took three doses of Xanax to calm me down enough to make it through the procedure. I used Xanax for the entire six weeks of radiation therapy. I had not expected panic attacks. I felt as though I was drowning.

I grew up on a farm, so I did learn to wash my hands frequently, but I have no phobias about diseases, Thank goodness. I would not be able to work in any modern office (there are no cubes or offices anymore).

I tolerated it for far too long, but the commute to Wall Street was an abomination.

Risk is defined as “the possibility of something bad happening”. I am triple vaccinated. The risks have been reduced. The possibility of anything wrong happening is extremely low. My cyber-security job involves the use of techniques and controls to mitigate risk. It’s just math, and the math of COVID suggests to me that the fully vaccinated have minimal risk.

Any risk management aims not to eliminate all risks (impossible) but to preserve and add value (being able to live life) by making intelligent decisions(get vaccinated). We all do risk management all the time. Some do it emotionally (bad), and some do it with data (sound). You do sound risk management when you buy insurance (risk transference) for your car. When you buy six jugs of milk (all of which expire are the same time) just before a major storm, you are not doing risk management; you are just panicking.

July 2021 | Minolta XD-11 | MD ROKKOR-X 45mm F2 | Kodak Pro Image 100

I think requiring face masks for all passengers on a plane or train is risk management theatre. It’s a performance with the illusion of control. Falguni sent me tons of information about how the air systems in the aircraft keep the air clean and how it’s safer than being in a crowded restaurant. Ok, so then why wear a face mask during the flight?

But the continued requirement to have masking on planes and trains means I can’t travel too far. Certainly not overseas to visit my Mom, whom I have not seen since March 2020. I may never see my family again.

9 February, 2020 | Bhavna | Pentax P3 | SMC Pentax-A 50mm f/2 | Ilford HP5+ 400

But the short answer is:

Bhavna and I never liked crowded, noisy spaces. We tolerated it. We have always chosen early morning movie times over popular times. We always go out to dinner (~ 5:30 PM) on Tuesday nights instead of Friday nights. We go to breweries just after they open on the weekend. We pay extra for the VIP tickets to the beer fest to enter one hour before the crowd. When we visit the Jersey shore in the summer, we do it in the middle of the week. We want the best experience. We do not feel we can get that in a crowded place at popular busy times.

So if the space is crowded, then mask or no mask, outdoor or indoor, it feels like I am drowning.

Film aesthetics without content

I grew up in the 1970s and learned the craft of photography in the late 1980s with an inexpensive Pentax 35mm analogue SLR camera in hand, spending countless hours in the darkroom. Stacks of 35mm film negatives and colour transparencies still bear witness to my creativity. Back in 1999, I was quick to jump onto the digital wagon, buying an expensive (for the time) Sony point-n-shoot camera. By 2006, I began using DSLRs and Adobe Lightroom as my digital darkroom. I returned to 35mm film photography a few years ago. While relearning 35mm film photography, I have abused quite a bit of 35mm film, trying to accomplish with my Minolta XD-11 camera what I could more easily produce with my Fuji X-T3 digital mirror-less camera. I even tried using film simulation recipes to duplicate the looks of popular 35mm films such as Portra, Kodachrome, and Ilford HP5.

I looked around the web for inspiration and followed some popular film photographers. But I started to feel like the more I looked at the work of present data famous film photographers, the more disillusioned I felt. Many present-day photographers take too many photographs without content; they fetishise the film aesthetics (grain, tonality, etc.) without considering the subject matter.

We can speculate as much as we want about the reasons why the photographic film is coming back. I personally think that it’s one part nostalgia and one part a desire for a more challenging and hands-on medium.

Take the popular Instagram channel, burbsonfilm. I started following this channel because I thought the subject matter would be more approachable since I live in the suburbs. I also hope to learn what film stock might work best for this subject matter. But after some time, I started to see a pattern. Almost all images are captured via some 1970s or 1980s time machine camera. Nearly every scene has a 1970s era car parked in a driveway or street corner, and run-down gas stations, records stores, and vintage diners are common. I have photographed the Princeton, Montgomery, Hopewell and Lamberville suburbs. Few of my 35mm film or digital photographs of these areas look like anything on the burbsonfilm channel.

The content on the boxspeed Instagram channel is more varied, but much of it is still trying to evoke scenes from the 1970s and 1980s. It seems to me that many current film photographers are trying to recreate the look and feel but also the time and place of old photographs from the 1970s and 1980s. Many of these photographers are trying hard to show that they shoot 35mm film by using film stock with excessive grain, exposing expired 35mm film, or using a camera with mechanical defects (e.g. light leaks). Perhaps to them, all of this is new.

Pier 11, Wall Street, Manhattan | 26 February, 2020 | Asahi Pentax Spotmatic II | SMC Takumar 55mm f/2 | Ilford HP5+

In the late 90s and early 2000s, 35mm film cameras and printing became very advanced and technical image quality improved considerably and moved away from the limitations of the 1970s and 1980s. 35mm film stocks didn't change much, but the cameras became more capable. Ironically the number of people shooting film declined as more people were switching (briefly) to digital point-n-shoot cameras and then ultimately to smartphones. Now here we are in the 2020s, and suddenly this 35mm film photography is cool again because many of the people shooting it are experiencing it for the first time in their lives. This is a recycled old hat for anyone who started with 35mm film photography in the 1970s, 1980s or 1990s.

Hipstamatic was one of the first popular smartphone apps that tried to emulate actual film flaws like exaggerated grain, underexposure, light leaks, and faded colour prints. Hipstamatic was an attempt to lend authenticity to digital images. Somehow, evoking the memories of faded snapshots made the digital image feel more "real" (I'm rolling my eyes right now). I think this feeling has led some people to intentionally create poor 35mm pictures (exaggerated grain, underexposure, light leaks, etc.) to hammer home that the image was taken with film.

Of course, the film negative must be digitally scanned and uploaded and shared for viewing on smartphone size screens. So what we are seeing are digital impressions of analogue media. I believe that well-made images made with quality film stock (anything that is not homography) are indistinguishable from digital camera creations once you shrink the photos down to fit on a smartphone. The flaws are the only reason to shoot with 35mm film for many people.

Avalon Beach | Wednesday, 26 August, 2020 | Minolta X-700 | MD Rokkor-X 50mm f/1.7 | Ektachrome E100

While I have not intentionally attempted to photograph scenes that would be commonplace in the 1970s or 1980s, nor intentionally underexposure my film, I must admit I'm guilty as anyone for posting scans of my failed 35mm film adventures but additionally that the subject of many of my 35mm film photographs are “underwhelming”. I want to step up my 35mm film photography game. I want to make pictures worthy of sharing. In my search for inspiration, I discovered a new e-zine called Grain, dedicated to film photographers. It’s a project by the publishers of the Fuji X Passion e-zine. Lifetime membership is US$35. I mostly make photographs with my Fuji X-T3, but I subscribed anyway.

If my rant conveys a bitter narrative, I apologise. Ultimately photography is about using a visual medium to tell "the story” and not about the process that captured it. A good photo is a good photo. How it was made need not be explained to the viewer. Yes, I am a bit of a hypocrite here. The captions in my posted images all contain the type of equipment used, and if it’s a scan of a 35mm film photograph, I include the film stock. Why?

I think it’s a sort of signal, indicating to members of the Fuji X and 35mm film community that may happen upon my website that “I am here. I am one of you”.

Raw Power

There’s always a car analogy when talking about computers … and software is the fuel in this analogy. You can have an astoundingly powerful, astoundingly energy-efficient engine that makes the car reach 300 km/h in 2 seconds. But without fuel, the car won’t go anywhere. ~ Raw power alone is not enough by Riccardo Mori

I am so looking forward to my Mac Studio.

It's a well-written article, but I have one quibble.

It’s a maddening scenario: with their unnecessarily tight restrictions in the name of security (theatre), with their capricious and petty App review checkpoints, Apple seems to be actively obstructing innovation in software.

The minute after Apple relaxes its controls, the bad actors will make haste to exploit the situation, and the technology journalist will make a mint on clickbait "Apple security sucks" articles.