Seven Years

"... Mr Marley has been dead these seven years, he died seven years ago this very night."  spoken by Scrooge during "A Christmas Carol"

That line from the classic work by Dickens, really sticks in my craw this year - it has an extra meaning to me - Let me explain.

It was seven years ago this weekend, that my good friend and mentor Joseph Hakey of Wakefield Massachusetts passed away and in the interim, I have thought about him constantly.

You see Joe's passing was at the most inopportune time -like a passing can be at a good time - no I mean in his career.

We were all JUST turning to digital cameras, dit cams, as we called them, and Joe was fascinated by them.

You may have heard me speak of the Old Fart Press Photographers of the North Shore. Well many of those meetings were attended by and presided over, if you will, by Joe and at that time, we all spoke of the upcoming revolution. We really did not know about Megapixels and Resolution, or photoshop or CF cards or any of that. The cameras we talked about were two piece units or the Kodak DCS models - built on either a Nikon or Canon frame but still two pieces. Those were the days!

But we would sit in the darkened back room of that Chinese restaurant, and we would talk of days that had gone by and of days to come. It is the days to come that I miss talking with Joe about.

He had a unique view of the world, I will always remember his sage advice - " A fee is a fee is a fee...", meaning that of you got a job as a freelancer, do the best you could cause you were making your fee and that was your living and you needed to do it often.

We would speak of scanning old slides and negatives, old games and assignments we had done, and how the digital camera revolution would change the business.

It is that topic that I miss talking to Joe about. I wonder what kind of camera Joe would be shooting, and if he would have totally embraced the digital camera revolution. I often wonder what he would shoot for cards and how it would have changed his whole business model. Yes we were technically competitors, but that never really played into our discussions.

I really miss Joe and if you knew him and wish to add a comment or a memory I would love to hear what you have to say.

High ISO - My Thoughts

A connundrum exists here in the digital photography world. 

As photographers, we yelled and screamed at camera manufacturers to give us higher and higher ISO's with lower and lower noise so we could shoot in darker and darker situations.

Well, we pretty much have that now. Indeed the current and upcoming crop of cameras have tremendous ability to shoot in low light with great results.

The connundrum is that photodog's everywhere now do not know how to us high ISO to their advantage. Not just amateur photographers, but many, many, and did I say many, professional photographers.

I was shooting football, at night, recently and one of the guys was commenting about how nice it was to shoot tonight's game at 6400 ISO. I was incredulous. The light at this field is gorgeous and you truly need no more than 1600 ISO to get great action stopping, sharp photos. I have cranked my Nikon D300 to 2000 and 2500 at this field and they photos are fine, but here it is - the Joe Brown Theorum on High ISO:

LESS IS MORE.

That is it. LESS IS MORE.

If you can get away with a lower ISO, then do so. 

You will, in general be MUCH happier with your photos than cranking it up to a high ISO just because you can.

The Bestest Darn Softbox --- EVER

y of you know of my association with SOPHA Studio in Manchester NH. It is a fantastic place to practice the craft of controlled photography, and learn the craft from those who are willing to teach. 

Now since SOPHA has a drive in cyc wall, they have that lit with

 the biggest softbox I think I

 have ever actually seen. It is big enough to light a car front to back, and has something like 7 lights in side of it. Beautiful.

Well, I have found one bigger! And softer! And a joy to work with! Anyone want to guess ??

It is a FOG BANK!

Yes indeed. Fog. Which is a cloud at ground level. 

I know you all think I have lost it, but read on:

I have been shooting lots of sports assignments over the past few days, and the weather here in New Englan has been nothing short of murky. But this, I feel, is an advantage. The sun goes down around 4:30 which requires the lights at the fields to be the primary source of illumination for the soccer or football games. Now invariably there are areas of the field that are unevenly illuminated. It is the nature of the beast.

So here is where the fog comes into play. The fog scatters the light around, and that softens it. But it also fills in some of the shadows, as all thouse photons bounce around. COOL EFFECT!

Here is a shot from Reading High School in Reading Mass during half time of last night's Football game. I realize there are no players on the field, but I am posting this to show the conditions.

Even the kids playing pickup football are fairly well lit.

And that is what takes your photos from snapshots to well crafted photos, see the light and where it does and doesn't go and use it to your advantage.

Well It's Happened Again....

Last night I bumped into a photographer I had not seen in a while. He was proudly, and rightfully sho, showing off his new Nikon Dxxx (the model is not important to this discussion). He told me had it only a couple of weeks, and was really enjoying using it. He pointed out how easy it was to shoot night sports events, as the unit did high ISO with ease.

So I asked him about a particular feature, and all I got was a blank look. Yup, truly a blank look. So for the second time in two weeks, I asked a photographer about his camera and I got the old blank look for an answer.

So here we have two of the best local photographers, both masters in the craft, and they are now using equipment they did not totally understand.

Pardon me, but this totally blows my mind.

Seriously - guys:  RTFM. PLEASE !!!

For the rest of us: RTM. (Expletive deleted). Please.

Thats right. Make a cup of joe, find a cozy nook, put the camera on your lap and read it. If even only for 15 minutes. Skim it if you dont have time to study it, but at least hit the highlights.

Then go out and shoot. Anything, the lawn, the neighbors cat, your 18 year old roommate, anything. And come back in and read the book some more. 

So when I bump into you, and you proudly point to your new camera, you can tell me all about it, and I know my work has been done!

A Nice Photo Find....

Hello all - welcome to the next installment of my blog, I apologize for not writing sooner, I am sure you all (all two of you who read this -hi mom!) have been chomping at the bit to read my next missive. Well kimosabe, your wait is over:

In photographic terms, more specifically in camera terms, I am but a youngster. Many of the friends and acquaintances I have can tell stories of olden days, with bigger cameras, and single shot Speed Graphic 4x5 cameras and more. And I have to tell you, this old technology (if you will) fascinates me. I love looking at the old cameras and trying to imagine covering a game or a fire with one of these. Certainly digital is different than all of that!

In that spirit, I have a small collection of cameras and I am always looking for ones to add to that. I am not hardcore, scouring the ends of the earth for cameras, more just a recreational, casual collector who adds what he can find as he finds it.

Well, in response to an internet posting, a gentleman from Tewksbury Massachusetts notified me that he had a couple of cameras to give away, and was I interested. Sure! So I went by his place and grabbed them from him.

First camera is a Polaroid J66. It is in minty condition, and has all the accessories including the original box - nice add to the collection!

But it was the second camera that had a little extra with it and really added to it.

The camera is a Kodak Duaflex II with a Kodet Lens. An interesting design, with a waist level finder using a mirror (so this is NOT a TLR in the true sense of the word) and a true plastic body. These were made in somewhat limited number in the early 1950's, and are still pretty common today.
So the camera is great, and it is in mint condition too, but can you imagine my amazement to also find the one thing I usually never find with old cameras - FILM !

Yes indeed I found 2 rolls of film!! BOTH ROLLS are BRAND NEW - NEVER OPENED!
But they have both long since EXPIRED! As you can see in the photo, they both expired in 1953! Yes indeed 55 years ago!

There was one other item in the old camera bag also, and I had really only heard stories about these, and that is flashbulbs. A sleeve of them. These are old Number 5 Synchro Press bulbs. They are basically the type you screw in, and I have been told that on dry days, if you happen to be charged with static electricity, you could set these off in your pocket, and get a burn!
Can you guess my next thought? Hmmmm, I have a camera, I have some film, I even have some bulbs. Should I ???? I think I might!!!

I will keep you posted !!

History and Influences

I started my photographic journey in about the 6th grade, with a Polaroid camera and a pack of instant film. As a 7th grader, I was allowed to use the family 126 Kodak camera. I will certainly never forget buying my first real camera - a Pentax K1000.

I was a ninth grader at Arlington Catholic High School, and just across Mass Ave from the bus stop was (and still is) New England Photo. The owner was (not sure if still is) a man by the name of Ara. I believe he was Armenian. Extremely nice man, from whom, I purchased several cameras.

As an aside, I will always remember the day a friend of mine came back from New York City and had lost all of his equipment in a car break in lower Manhattan. He really loved the Canon AE-1 Program he had and wanted another one of the same. However, it had been several years since the AE-1 Program had been in production, and they were hard to come by. I thought that if anyone had one to sell, it would be Ara. So we went to the store and asked, and Ara said he thought he had one. Well, after a few minutes Ara came out of the back room, in what could be called High Procession, with an AE-1 Program, but not just any AE-1, a BLACK one! NEW IN THE BOX, and as I recall, it was a kit with the 50 mm lens all wrapped up together. My friend bought it in heartbeat, and I was proud to have helped him.

Back to my Pentax - I got the K1000 and a 50mm F2.0 lens from Ara, and my parents paid for it. I remember the whole kit and caboodle being $119.oo plus the tax, and my mother was extremely skeptical about what would happen with this major purchase. Well, that camera served me well. I learned so much from that box, I was in heaven. I took that thing with me everywhere, and Mom constantly reminded me of it's safety and make sure it did not get stolen.

So it is that I cannot remember when I upgraded that camera, it may have been when I returned to good old Woburn High. But I remember moving up to the Super Program, then the ME, then the ME Super, and that camera served me through my brief stay in college, and then beyond.

It was late 1987 that I started with the Woburn Daily Times newspaper group as a freeelance photographer and I purchased my first Nikon FILM camera. An FE. May have been an FE2. Nice camera, and it served me well.

I upgraded on a fairly regular basis and used a pair of F4s's for film cameras for all of my assignments.

So why the walk down memory lane? Well two reasons.

First - I have been asked to be the guest speaker at the upcoming Reading Art Association's Annual Dinner on June 11th, and I need something to speak about, so I have been going over some of my old stories and photos for some inspiration.

But moreso there was a small article in the NY Times newspaper today (6-3-08) that spoke of one of my earliest influences in photography (though I am not sure I should be proud of this - read on.)

As a photojournalist at the Woburn paper, several freelancers came and went and we all had to share assignments and mostly darkroom space. It was a constant struggle to schedule time to get developing and printing done.

One of the freelancers who spent some time with us, was a man called Steven Senne. He is now a bigtime photojournalist with the Associated Press based in Boston.

As he was leaving to move on in his career, he presented me with a book of photography and told me that I was like this man - Arthur Fellig - also known as WeeGee.

I was chasing fires and news nearly 24 hours a day in those days, cutting my teeth as they say and trying to get established in the photography business. WeeGee was the ultimate in spot news or crime photographers - based in New York City - the crime capitol of the world. He was in some persons eyes, the ultimate papparazzo also, as he photrographed the seedy side of NYC when not chasing ambulances. His moniker of WeeGee was a play on the title of the Ouija Board a game which supposedly predicted the future - WeeGee could seemingly predict where the crime was and oft times was there before the police.

Have a look at this article and try to remember it the next time you are out perusing a yard sale - you never know what you may find.

Old Photos Found at Yard Sale

It makes me wonder - if I lose a box of my photos, will some museum want my stuff long after my death?? :)

I LOVE the smell of Terabytes in the Morning...

OK, I know, that is SO overused it isn't even funny.

But it is the truth! Amen it is!

You see, I just added 2 TERABYTEs of Hard Drive Space to my old ancient machine, that will easily carry forward to my next machine, which I am configuring now. So as I write this little missive, one of the 1 TB drives has finished formatting and we are 25% of the way through the 2nd.

Why two TERAbytes you ask? I am glad you asked this! I will be the first to admit that this is a lot of storage, and does everyone need it? NO! Do I need it ?? YES, YES and YES! I am currently generating an average of 1 GIGABYTE of photos per day, nearly seven days a week. On a really busy day, I can generate 4 or 5 GIGABytes of photos. I am also now recording live sound at some of the assignments and creating audio slide shows. And it all adds up to needing mucho storage.

The Final Tally

You may remember my blog posting late last year about the number of newspaper photos I have taken over the years. (Story Here).

Well here is the final tally for 2007:
178 GB of photos, totalling 80,749 files, stored in 1,230 folders.

To recap 2006, 177 GB, 80,647 files, in 1747 folders.

So to do the math, a reduction of 30% in folders, but since the file sizes have gotten bigger (and presumably better), the overall total stays the same.

I dunno, I don't think I did 30% less work! But hey you never know! LOL

NIKON D300 Report

As I approach the one month anniversary of my acquisition of my Nikon D300, I was asked by my Colorado friend if I was really happy with it.

Before I answer that, I would like to remind everyone of the mantra that I, and my photo friends Bud and Dave, preach - the camera is ONLY a tool. It is the photographer that creates the image, or captures it to film and pixel. Indeed, some of us are Nikon shooters and some of us are Canon shooters and they both do a fine job.


So let me speak about my new D300. Nikon's newest budget ($2100!) camera is a joy to use, and yes, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT.


So there I said it. Go ahead, diss me, flame me, yell at me, but I will still stay the same - I LOVE IT. It is the finest digital cmaera I have ever used. The quality is awesome, the colors are beautiful, and the skin tones are just magnificent.

I was specifically asked about the High ISO quality of the photos and I must say that this is where I think this camera really shines.


Many of you know that I do a lot of low-light shooting at High School gymnasiums, wrestling rooms, and ice hockey rinks for the newspaper. Now using my D200 was actually a very nice low light - high iso experience, as long as you maxed it out around 1600.


Well now I shoot all the way up to 3200 and the noise is nearly non-exsistant. Conversly at 200 ISO, which is the bottom iso for this, the results are breathtaking.


So here is a photo, I shot recently at the O'Brien Ice Rink in Woburn, it was taken at 2000 ISO:

Clicking on the file will bring up the original, from the camera, untouched, photo (caution large file). Please notice her right eye - it is sharp as a tack (remember this is 2000 ISO). Now notice the noise pattern, especially in the shadow areas. WOW. PLEASE NOTE - I only shoot at MEDIUM resolution for the newspaper, so the above photo is about 6.3 MP in size. I am certainly willing to send a 12.8MP file of another high ISO shot to anyone for comparison purposes - just let me know.

Here is a closeup of the area for those who do not wish to download the whole file:

Beyond the high iso quality, I am amazed at the battery consumption of this camera. I would not have, anytime in the past, gone into an assignment with less than 3 batteries for the camera. Well that has all changed. The 300 sips from the EN-EL3 battery pack, and I am routinely getting 1200 - 1400 photos from a single battery on a single charge. As a matter of fact, and my intern Melissa can attest to this, we went to a Girls Basketball game the other night, and I had only 8% of the battery left, per the camera's LCD, and I shot the second half of the game without even thinking about it. Did I have second battery with me? Of course I did - I would be foolish to not have one, but am I confident in this cameras abilty with that low a battry power?? YES I AM!!!

Problems:

OK, now you and I both know that there is no such thing as a perfect anything, there will always be, IMHO, a problem with something, especially with all things mechanical. And this camera I am sure is the same.

But I have not yet found anything to report. Yup, nothing. Everything works as advertised, from the drive, to the sensor, to the flash,l everything is peachy.

I do have one problem with it - and it is probably the best problem to have:

I call it CHOICE OVERLOAD.

There are so many choices to set in the menus that it really is overload. I give the example of white balance: No longer do you choose Sunny, or Cloudy or Flourescent - now there are subsets underneath: Under Flourescent for example, you have White, Cool, Warm, Sodium, Mercury, etc etc. Sheesh - just how the Heck am I supposed to decide?? Ya ya I know - do a custom WB!

Anyway, that is my story and I am sticking to it.

As always, comments and critiques are always welcome.