Cancel Culture

I don’t believe in cancel culture. And when I say that I don’t mean in the sense that it’s a bad thing, or that people are excessively woke, or policing other people’s lives… the usual crap that you hear bemoaning it.

When I say I don’t believe in cancel culture I mean that I don’t believe it’s a thing.

It’s accountability, plain and simple. You do something that you know is wrong, immoral, illegal, whatever, then you have to deal with its consequences as well. It doesn’t matter if it was last week, last year or last century, actions have repercussions. I don’t want to hear about it being a different culture, a different time.

The bottom line is that if you do something wrong and knew that it was wrong, you’re responsible for your actions. Period. No additional context or perspective needed.

Quarantine Inactivity

I have been very quiet, in real life and online, during this lockdown. Part of that is because my main connection to the world beyond my door has been my photography and with everything shut down and common sense dictating that I keep my ass indoors.

And I hate that. I hate being shut in the house. I hate working from home. I hate not feeling safe going to a park or walking along the shoreline. But I’ve gotten my first COVID dose and my next dose scheduled in ten days. So with life beginning to approach normalcy again I’m preparing to get out more often, be more active, shoot more film. With that in mind my thoughts came back to this website which has been sitting inert, out of date. I’ve been thinking about what I want to do with it, the direction I want to go in with it.

It’s a personal website, right? So should I get a little more personal with it? If you know me, even casually, you know that I am very opinionated and very political. I haven’t really shown that side of me here because I didn’t want to alienate anyone who may have come here just for the photography. I find that the older I get though that I care less and less what people think of my or my views. So this personal website is going to get very personal and I truly don’t care if it turns someone off from viewing my work. If they get offended by my views then I honestly don’t care what they think of my work or about me.

…stay tuned.

Do what pleases you

Sean Tucker has been an inspiration for me since I got back into photography. If you’re looking for insight on just about anything, he is a great source, not just for technical information, but also philosophical guidance. I would say that I have found the latter to have been helpful on my journey much more than the former. His most recent video really spoke to me because I don’t feel like I can be easily labeled and put into a category as a photographer. I dabble in whatever fascinates or draws me in. It’s an emotional exercise for me much more than a technical one. I do street photography but feel immensely uncomfortable including recognizable faces of strangers in my images. I enjoy taking abstract photographs just as much as I do taking landscapes. I really haven’t gotten to a point where I have a comprehensive record of my work on here yet, but if you know my work from IG or anywhere else, you’d probably have a difficult time putting me into a conventional photography genre. Which is fine with me; I don’t want to be labeled in what I do behind the camera.

The bottom line is that you don’t need anyone’s permission to do something you love the way that you want to do it. I approach photography now pretty much the same way I did as a kid in the 80’s running around with a Kodak 110 in my pocket. I frame images that please me, compose them using the few rudimentary rules I’ve picked up along the way, and don’t really worry when I break them. I enjoy the hell out of the process and if other people like what I do, I am immensely pleased. But in the end I do it for me, for my enjoyment.

Give yourself permission to do what you love the way you like doing it.

Ektar 100

When I first came back to film I tried as many different film stocks as I could get my hands on and one of the first was Kodak Ektar 100. One of the main reasons was because it’s easy to come by. It’s incredibly easy to find online and you can even find it in small local photo shops. It’s not the easiest to lay your hands on - that would be Kodak Gold 200 or Fuji Superia 200, both of which you can usually find in drug stores and big box stores.

But I fell in love with Ektar immediately and it’s become my favorite color stock. Its warmth and fine grain give a look that I find just dreamy. Even though its low ISO of 100 it handles low light pretty well - it’s got quite a bit of latitude when in comes to exposure. This is an image from the very first roll of Ektar that I shot and it’s one of my favorite images.

Gear Choices

I am not one who goes for high-end, expensive photography gear. You’ll never see me running around with a Contax T2 or a Leica. They are amazingly well-crafted and designed cameras. But in the end it’s not about the camera you’re using but more about how you compose your images, find the best light, knowing how to use the gear, being prepared and a whole lot of luck.

I almost always have a camera with me. I have a small messenger bag that I take with me, slung over my shoulder. At the very least I have whatever 35mm SLR I am currently shooting with or one of the small point & shoot cameras from the 90’s that I have. These are easy to find in thrift stores for a few bucks, or if you have a particular camera in mind (that isn’t overpriced like the aforementioned Contax T2 which you can’t find for less than $1000) you can find it online, usually for less than $50.

I shot this image with a Minolta Dual Freedom that I picked up in a Goodwill store for $4. The roll of Kodak Tri-X 400 that I shot this with literally cost more than the camera itself. It was a warm spring day in 2019 and it had been rainy in the morning. As the day wore on I could see out of the window at work the fog getting thicker and thicker so when I took my lunch break I ran up to the roof and then around downtown New Haven and shot half a roll of film in about 20 minutes. I got a lot of great images from that brief period but this one is a particular favorite. It’s matted and framed and hanging on the wall in my home. And I didn’t need a $3000 Leica camera to create it.

Why Film?

I get asked this question fairly often. Why take pictures in what some perceive to be an outdated way. My reasons are many. A lot of them have to do with nostalgia but there are practical reasons as well.

1. Film looks different. It doesn’t have the ability to capture as much of the light spectrum as the sensors in modern digital cameras. For instance, the Sony Alpha 7 iii has a range of 15 stops (roughly how photographers measure levels of light or luminescence) while one of my favorite film stocks, Kodak Ektar 100 has a range of only 10 stops. For reference the human eye has a range of about 20 stops. So a film photographer is more constrained than a digital photographer. But I’ve always found imposing restrictions fosters creativity. Like Orson Welles once said, “The enemy of art is the absence of limitation.”

2. I enjoy the delayed gratification. Not completely knowing how the shot is going to turn out forces you to really stop and think about composition, framing, exposure, etc. You can’t click and immediately look at your camera’s display and keep re-snapping till you finally capture something satisfying. Not having the option to take unlimited angles and exposures makes you more disciplined and choosing to take that on makes this feel more like an art than a science.

3. It’s also a tactile thing, or at least it is for me. I have a couple of DSLRs and they’re great. But they just don’t compare to how the Yashica 635 (pictured) feels in my hands. Or nearly any other older film camera. I have a Bronica ETR medium format camera that is just a behemoth and I love hefting it around. When the shutter opens and closes on a mechanical camera you really feel it.

Some people have the opinion that film is dying but it just isn’t true. New film stocks are being introduced all the time and old ones are being brought back from the dead like Fuji Neopan Acros and Kodak Ektachrome. Older cameras were built to last and I have quite a few that are as old as or older than I am and function beautifully, and there is an ample supply of them. I find it a more fulfilling process than digital photography.

Abstract(ish)

I went down to Wooster Square early one morning just to see and photograph the blossoms. One of the ideas I had in mind was to do something somewhat abstract, focusing on the blossoms and little else. I had my Minolta XE-5 in hand with my Rokkor 55mm f/1.7 lens mounted. I wanted as much bokeh as possible so I opened the lens as wide as possible and got as close as I possibly could. I was shooting Kodak Ektar 100, which is one of my favorite film stocks. It turned out much nicer than I had anticipated. This one is getting printed, mounted, framed and hung on the wall.

This is all new to me (again)

It’s been a while since I’ve had my own blog, my own domain. I used to be a web designer a lifetime ago and remember a bit of the tools of the trade but certainly not enough to try and do it on my own again. So… squarespace. I plan on using this space to feature my photography, talk about my process and journey and probably occasionally ramble on about nothing. Thanks for stopping by and checking me out and come back again soon.