The Online Photographer

I have this dream...that all I have to do is work.

Wait a minute. I didn't say that right.

My dream is specifically about my job now—The Online Photographer and all its auxiliary projects—and it's that all I have to do is write.

It's a good dream, not a bad one. No phone calls, customer service, comment moderation, computer glitches, product wrangling, link building, email answering, or any of the 1,001 other tasks that now fill up my day...all I have to do is write the posts.

Ahhh, luxury. That would be really nice. Because that's the part I really enjoy.

But then I realized...it's exactly the same way for photographers. And probably also for all small, independent, sole-proprietorship businesspeople. Whatever it is you like best about your job, you actually get to spend very little time doing.

It's not like everything else I do is a chore. I enjoy a lot of it. Even the complaints, because TOP readers are generally so reasonable and generous...even in complaint mode, their hearts are in the right place. (For the record, almost every single post I write that's more than four paragraphs long gets complaints from somebody, somewhere. You can't please all the people all the time.)

As a photographer, I probably spent the most time actually working when I was a student. Then, it was most of my work. I could take pictures every day and spend hours at it if I wanted to. (I ended up spending most of my time in the darkroom, because I enjoyed crafting prints more than taking pictures.) Then I became a photography teacher, and I still had a lot of time to take pictures—but I didn't realize how good I had it. Then I became a professional photographer, hoping to spend more time taking pictures...but (many of you know what's coming next) as a professional I got to spend even less time taking pictures. I've noticed estimates over the years from many people from many places...most run from between 5% to a high of 30%. That's the percentage of the time you actually get to take pictures if you're a professional photographer. It's more like the former than the latter. Maybe a National Geographic photographer gets to photograph 30% of the time, I don't know. We could ask Jim Richardson. But a small-time jobber professional gets to actually shoot 10% of the time or less, I'd say.

So, those of you who earn a living in other ways and never seem to have enough time for photography? Don't worry, you're not alone. Professionals don't get to spend much more time shooting than you do. A little more, maybe. But not a lot.

Maybe it's the dream of everyone who likes what they do...to only work, and never have to worry about all the rest.

Mike

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Steve Snyder: "I forgot where I read it, but there was a time and motion study that wanted to find out how many hours employees actually do real work at a job and I think the number was around of 30% of total hours at the office. The rest is administrative, meetings, surfing the web, training, etc.

"Don't feel bad. When I was self employed, I would be lucky to work 2–3 hours a day actually doing work. The rest was answering emails, paperwork, meetings.

"Sometimes I think 30% is too high!

Steve D: "It's this observation that has kept me from accepting payment/assignments for my photos. I learned from years of vintage motorcycle restoration (my first real love) that once you accept payment to do a task, you're no longer doing it purely for yourself, and many of the choices are now dictated by someone else. Maybe it's just me, but it's a dynamic I can't endure.

"A sign in a restoration shop I used to work for: Labor $75/hr. If you want to watch, $150/hr. If you want to ask questions, $300/hr."

Jim: "I would say this is pretty accurate. I've been a newspaper shooter almost 40 years, and although the time I actually spend shooting has declined dramatically over the years (thanks to increasing responsibility and having to do more with fewer people), there was always a lot of time spent doing everything except shooting photos."

Maggie Osterberg: "One of my favorite quotes from Robert Fripp captures this exactly: 'The business of the amateur musician is music. The business of the professional musician is business.'"

Gordon: "As a working photographer I roughly agree with your figures. But I never forget that the worst part of my job is still better than the best part for most. So I'll be OK."

Mike replies: A great way to think about it. Thanks, Gordon.

Kenneth Tanaka: "True story: Several years ago a (then) rising star of the art photo world came to talk with a small group at the museum here [The Art Institute of Chicago —Ed.]. After dinner he remembered he had promised to review some student portfolios after the event (10 p.m.!) and asked me how to get to the school's studios.  I offered to guide him. The 15–20 minute walk in the crisp winter night air seemed to be a welcome respite for him, and he chatted candidly about himself. He confessed to being a basically shy person. Although his new fame had its rewards it came with a high price in lack personal and shutter time. He was now on the high-art circuit and was obligated to make endless personal appearances at talks, fairs, symposiums, etc. as part of his deal with his gallery agents. "I just want to take the damn pictures!", I remember him saying so clearly to me as we walked through that cold winter night.

"This fellow's star has since risen even higher. He's now approaching the pantheon of contemporary art-photo super-stardom. Presumably he's at, or near, the point at which he'll be able to control the forces that now control him.

"Moral: Be careful what you wish for and be prepared to achieve it."

I had a bad day on Thursday. I started writing three different posts, and each one, despite dogged labor, had to be mercy-killed.

Nothing else was going right, either. I went to Best Buy to get three different things and came away with none of them. Struck out...strike one, two, three.

Does that ever happen to you? It happens to me with a camera sometimes. You just know there was a picture there, and you worked it but you weren't quite sure you got it, and when you saw what you got you just really, really wanted it to be something...but it was just not quite there. It's those oh-so-close ones that make you mad.

My Dad used to like to make French-style omelettes, and he had a saying..."Sometimes you get an omelette, sometimes you get a mess of eggs."

Tomorrow's another day.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Animesh Ray: "For a scientist, most days are like that."

David Littlejohn: "From Will Rogers: If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging."

Sebastião Salgado: a picture from Genesis. Photo courtesy Taschen Books.

It just occurred to me yesterday, when I vetted a comment from Paul Amyes claiming that the printers of Sebastião Salgado's internegatives from digital are Dominique Granier and Paul and Max Caffel, and not Voya Mitrovic, that I've been getting into trouble for more than twenty years trying to report "what Salgado uses" for his work.

The very first occasion was when I read (some time in the '90s) that Salgado carried three cameras—two Leica M cameras, one with a 35mm lens and one with a 28mm, plus one Leica SLR (an R6, I think it was) with a 60mm R Macro. I repeated this in an article, and got all sorts of blowback for it—no, said some, this is wrong, he uses other lenses; no no, he uses different cameras; no no no, that was what he used to use, but not any more; and so on. Everyone, it seemed, had read a different article or interview, and was willing to attest to some different truth.

Ever since then, I think I've reported (or published) about five times "what Salgado uses"—usually based on what the photographer had said in an interview—and each time it was a different thing, and each time there have been dissenters who knew better.

So I pretty much decided this morning—unilaterally and spontaneously—that I should make it axiomatic that none of us knows what the hell Salgado uses for anything at any given point in time...even if the photographer says so himself; because he might have moved on since he said it. The man is obviously peripatetic in his travels; maybe he's also questing and capricious in his methods, trying different things all the time and making changes frequently. I don't know. I don't know Sebastião. We are not acquainted. I've never watched him work or heard anything directly from him. All the information I've ever gotten about him is secondhand at best.

What also seems axiomatic is that a great many people love his work, respect his accomplishments, and admire his skills. Maybe that should be enough.

Mike

P.S. Meanwhile, our next print sale—Peter Turnley's, at the end of October—will include two pictures taken with the Leica M-Monochrom, transferred to a 4x5" film internegative, and printed—by Voja Mitrovic—on traditional fiber-base silver gelatin paper. So at least a few readers (buyers of one of those prints) will be able to judge for themselves what they think of that technique.

I haven't seen the prints yet myself, so I don't know yet what I think. What I do know about them is that their success or failure will largely depend on the photographer and the printer and their judgment and visual sensitivity and skill, because that, not base technique, is what makes photographs work.

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Paul Butzi: "In every photo of the man that I've seen where he has a camera, the camera was a Leica M of some sort.

"But that's immaterial. I have owned a number of Leica M cameras (and own one now, and I like it a lot). I even own a 35mm lens just like the one Salgado is reputed to use.  And I've used a 28mm just like the one he is supposed to have used.

"And before that, I used a lens exactly like the one John Sexton used in a lot of his photos, and not only that, I used the same film and the same paper and the same chemistry and processing methods as John.

"Despite this somewhat creepy similarity between Salgado's equipment and mine, and between Sexton's process and mine, the risk that someone might look at one of my photos and think 'Why, that looks like it was made by Sebastião Salgado' is essentially zero. Same thing if someone looks at my landscapes made with a 4x5 in terms of mistaking my work for Sexton's.

"The problem, I think, is that Salgado makes photographs with his brain and his understanding of the subject and his emotional responses, and Sexton likewise with his brain, understanding, and emotions, and I must limp along with my own brain, understanding, and responses. And of course since we are all different, our photographs too will be different.

"Some people apparently consider this to be a problem. Myself, I think it's an absolutely glorious state of affairs."

I keep thinking of the 1890s. And no, to you younger readers, I wasn't around then. This post is not about nostalgia for the days of my youth.

So...why? Well, there was a camera craze in the 1890s. Previously, photography had mostly been accomplished by cameras held up on three sticks, by people who were initiates in the arcane arts of developing and printing; this took dedication and resources, and such devotees were relatively rare. The "hand-camera craze" of the 1890s was inaugurated by the advent of the Kodak in 1888; suddenly, everyone was taking pictures. Photography had suddenly become much easier, and much more widely and readily available. (Remind you of anything?) It's estimated that a million and a half Kodaks had found their way into the nation's hands by 1898—and there were just about a quarter as many people in the U.S.A. then as now. You did have to be moderately well-off to play. But it was the newest and latest technology, a modern contrivance, a modern convenience, and lots of people wanted to participate.

George Eastman with one of his Kodak hand cameras.
He kicked off a bona-fide craze in the 1890s.

What I've been wondering is whether we might not be smack in the middle (or maybe just a little toward the end) of just such a craze right now. Maybe, just maybe, the frenzied market for ever-improving digital cameras, the uploading of vast numbers of snapshots to the Internet, the huge influx of newcomers to the hobby, is all a phase, a fad—a craze. Maybe future photo historians will look back on this period and have a nice neat name for it, like, I don't know, the Megapixel Race or the Y2K Digicam Craze or some other nice name that ties the phenomenon up with a bow.

We humans have a touching way of assuming that everything is progress and that all progress is permanent—that all is upswell, and the swelled-up state is the way it's going to be from now on, forevermore. But I don't know. Maybe this is a wave—a rogue wave—and once it passes it'll be gone.

Just a thought.

Mike

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Gregory May: "One of my favorite quotes, from Alfred Stieglitz: 'Photography is a fad well-nigh on its last legs, thanks principally to the bicycle craze.'"

Oh, and here's something that Peter and I witnessed last evening. We were on the outdoor deck at Slice N' Dice Sushi in Pewaukee Lake, the newest venture of my restaurateur friends Quyen, Siam, and Koson. Well after sunset, the table next to us arranged themselves for a group portrait. Everybody posed, the designated photographer held up a cellphone and hemmed and hawed in the usual way: "Wait—okay, hold it! Everybody hold it! Okay, smii-ile!"—and then the cellphone flickered out a weak wash of light and the deed was done.

And this all happened in the dark. I mean, it was dark when the group got in position and everyone put their arms around each other. And nobody seemed to bat an eye. Nobody even commented on it; the whole lot of them took it completely for granted.

This just struck me as a real change from ancient times—well before my time—when Aunt Gertie would herd the family outdoors and put the blazing sun behind her before anyone considered the light to be sufficient for a photograph. How many old snapshots have I seen of half-willing family members standing in a yard or by a front door squinting against sunshine?

Anyway, no big deal. Just struck me as another sign o' the times.

Mike

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rnewman: "Ah, yes, I remember it well—the 20-second nighttime exposures (make that 28 seconds with reciprocity) on 100ASA film (pre-ISO here in the U.S.). Now it can be 1/100 at 12,500 ISO without the golf ball sized grain. May those good old days never be forced on me again!"

Andrea: "Probably it was too much dark for a decent picture, but some insta-filters and insta-moments later, and the art was uploaded on Somebook or Picasomething. Another sign of the times...."

Doug C: "With modern technology I guess it works, but this reminds me of a rather unpleasant job I did a number of years ago.

"The job was to photograph a group of about 200 Dodge Vipers at dawn. I had marked out the area the day before so we would know where to park the cars. But I arrived at 6:00 a.m. to find that my markings had been cleaned up—removed. I was shooting with a #10 Cirkut and trust me, with a view camera you can see nothing until the sun comes up, not even the headlights of the cars. I set out some cones to indicate where they should park, just from memory and guessing. And then set up the camera and waited for the sun.

"Amazingly, the composition worked. My cones were within a few feet of where the chalk lines had been the day before. But it gives me chills to think about it because with the Cirkut you cannot point the camera further down to get that front row into the frame, and I was on a scissors lift hemmed in by immovable objects so I could not change my vantage point. The cars would either be on the ground glass when the sun came up or not.

"These days I could use a digital back up to save me, but back then...."

Marketing guru Dan Ariely talks about an interesting concept. First, a given in marketing is that people like to stand in line for things. That is, we like to do what other people are doing, and we tend to want what other people want. The interesting part is that people also tend to "stand in line with themselves," meaning, if your first car was a Ford, and your second car was a Ford, and your third car was a Ford, then, figuratively speaking, you're standing in line behind your past selves when you choose a Ford again.

This is what creates "Ford men"...and "fanboys." Or any of the various other terms that mean something similar.

In that sense, I'm beside myself! (Get the joke?) Writing about cameras for so many years I've had to switch and swap, go this way then that. I'm an Olympus man, because I shot with an Olympus for four years in the '90s. I've never been a Leica man even though I shot with Leicas for almost as long (an M4, M6, M3, and IIIf. But rangefinders just weren't a fit for me). I'm a Pentax man because I fell in love with Spotmatics late in that decade, but I didn't grow up shooting Pentaxes like so many people did. I said here that I'm a Sony man. That was ten years ago. And so I am again today, without even intending it—my two main cameras are a NEX-6 and an A900. A Sony man still—who'd a' thunk? I shot Nikon for my "pro years," such as they were, but that didn't count because it was "business."

In 2009 I got a Panasonic GF1 and that was my main camera for almost three years (although other cameras were of course in and out of the house, as they always are). I followed it with a GX1 which was shorter-lived, shoved aside by the Sony. Because, you see, what I really think of myself as—still!—is a Contax man, even though they're out of business and I haven't shot with one for years. Because that was the first serious camera I bought with my own money and the camera I went through art school with. I had Zeiss lenses. It was with me always and I used it every day. My Zeiss-love survives from ancient youth, the lure of the first love. (Hey, lenses shouldn't be made of rose-colored glasses.)

Whew.

All this hopping and skipping is not good for your photography. It has definitely not been good for mine. My fondest wish if I ever retire is to use one camera for a whole decade (or at least half of one). Really get to know it. Never look at anything else. I might yet get the chance.

Odd, because in the wake of this morning's announcements I find myself still thinking of myself as a Micro 4/3 devotee and a Panasonic shooter. Were I still shooting with the GX1, I would without a doubt be lining up with a whole bunch of other people to buy a GX7 today. No question.

And lining up behind myself, too. Odd how that happens. We identify with something because it relates to what we did before.

Mike

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Rick Popham: "Whaaat?? Your two main cameras are a NEX-6 and an A-900? What happened to the Big Dragoon? Did I miss something?"

Mike replies: Still have it. Just don't use it much. I'm scared I might take a chunk out of its resale value and have been babying it.

Rob: "Brand loyalty is an interesting psychological phenomenon that relates to our personal identification with our possessions. Some people are higly prone to it, while others are more utilitarian minded. Personally, I often find myself promoting or defending whatever I am currently using, but I am not tied to any particular brand over the long term. So, I tend to be enthusiastic but not attached, which I think is a good thing.

"I started seriously in photography with a Contax G2 and then moved on to various Pentax DSLRs and some fine prime lenses. Now I am totally smitten by the Sony RX1. I don't know if that makes me a Sony guy, but I do want to use that camera to the exclusion of all others."

Rob [different Rob —Ed.]: "I was a Canon man as soon as I held a Canon T90. I still feel I am a Canon man even though I don't own anything Canon!"

If you take a picture while driving, never post it. Or never admit that you took it. Or ascribe it to someone else. Peter Falk voice: "This was taken by Mrs. Columbo, who was with me at the time. She's quite a shutterbug, she is. Oh yeah, she loves the cameras and the photography, the whole thing."

(Sorry, ancient television reference to Lt. Columbo's invented wife. I don't know about where you are, but the airwaves here are flooded with TV shows from thirty years ago, and it's freaking me out just a wee tiny bit...there are suddenly lots of shows on that I remember, but didn't remember that I remembered. Kinda like your life flashing in front of your eyes. The totally wasted part of it. But I digress.)

On the other hand, the above picture is a perfect example of "cool with warm accent." That was an assignment Paul Kennedy gave us in photo school...that I failed. Just wasn't able to come up with one at the time. And ever since, whenever I take one, I think of that assignment and think, "This would have worked." I should send this to Paul. I actually kinda like the picture.

For some reason, the opposite—warm with a cool accent—doesn't work nearly as well. Maybe Ogg evolved predisposed to see campfires glowing in the dangerous murky dusk.

Mike

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Matthias Jennerholm, Stockholm: "Is this your first surrealistic post Mike? I only understood the Columbo part and that shooting while driving is illegal. Or something like that. Anyway I enjoyed my confusion."

Mike replies: Fish.

Here's what I've been doing photographically lately: Just having fun.

It feels like a big change, somehow. I'm just doing exactly what I want to do with no added conditionals or stressors placed on top of it. Just having fun. Don't need to show it to anybody, don't need to make it into a book, don't need to sell it for money, don't need for other people to be approving or admiring or impressed. I'm old enough to know I'm never going to be a great photographer. Or even a significant minor one. But it's still fun to do.

And you know what? It's kinda nice. It's like the "doing" of photography* has energy again. I made a few things last night that I really like.

Hope you're having a nice Memorial Day, those of you who have the day off. Even if it's raining where you are, like it is here.

Mike

*All the words we have for "the activity of photography" are loaded somehow, it seems to me. Coming from reading about Zen, I used to use the word "practice," like a lawyer or other professional is said to be "in a practice" or "practicing" her profession. But then I got a letter from a reader at the magazine with a picture in it, and I wrote back something like "That's a great shot—keep practicing!!"—I just meant, basically, keep it up, keep at it, "keep on truckin'." And I got back from him a closely logick'd two-page letter delineating how brusquely I had affronted him and offended his work. He had taken the term "practice" in the sense of "practicing the piano"—exercises that needed to be done by a student who hadn't attained mastery yet. He thought I was trying to imply that if he kept working at it he might get there someday. That wasn't how I meant it. (And didn't he know that the greatest pianists in the world practice every day?) But it indicated the poverty of the word.

Other words seem similarly loaded. "My work," "the work," seems somehow pretentious—and anyway is it your "personal work" or something done "for" work, i.e., for pay? Those things are very different. "Photographing" is a bit too bland, and anyway it seems to favor one part of the activity—being out shooting—over others like editing and processing and printing, or posting. And of course "work" is interpreted by some to mean the opposite of fun.

Somehow we need a neutral, judgment-free term for just doing photography—in the way that "woodworking" can mean building a birdhouse from a kit with your seven-year-old all the way up to creating original furniture as art like you're some sort of George Nakashima. One that just means doing photography, without any indication or implication or emphasis of one part of the activity over another.

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Richard Skoonberg: "I often look at the links of the people who comment on TOP. John Krill, who posted in the Comments here, has a wonderful video at the top of his blog about the life of Wayne Miller, a photographer who worked with Captain Edward Steichen during the war and afterwards went on to assist with the very famous 'Family of Man' exhibit. Wayne Miller died this year. Here is the link to the video."

Nigel Voak: "When I realised that 'I'm old enough to know I'm never going to be a great photographer. Or even a significant minor one,' photography for me became fun again. (I did 10 years of first full time, then part time, theatrical photography.) I now use photography for the most part to document my explorations of the Italian Apennines. No pretence to do art. Just what I hope are good photos of where I have been or what has interested me at the time."

Hi Mike,
I greatly enjoy reading TOP. I hope you will pardon me for asking a question that may drive you to despair.

I was at Hikone castle last weekend and snapped the two pictures below, maybe a minute apart.

• The picture with the boat was taken using my Pentax K-7 and 21mm lens.
• The other picture was taken using my iPhone 5.

Both are JPEGs using the default settings. (No choice with the iPhone. "Bright" colors for the K-7.) The lens on both cameras have a similar field of view, and the shutter speeds for both pictures happen to be close.

What did I do wrong? I'd like the Pentax picture to look better than the iPhone. But even excluding the differences in colors and framing, details on the Pentax are not much better.

Should I have picked a wider aperture? Used a tripod? (It's really more of a weekend snapshot, so I would not use a tripod there. But I'd take that advice and maybe make the investment for other occasions.) Is the focus off? Would a better / newer camera address some of these issues? (K-5 IIs for the supposedly better autofocus, or a mirrorless to avoid the calibration problems?)

If there's no major issue with the photographer or the camera, maybe I will simply forget about a larger camera and use the iPhone full time. No point carrying anything else around if it can't help me making better pictures.

Thanks again for your website—and I will understand if you can't find time to reply.

Regards,
François M.

Hi Francois,
Not a mystery really.

Most cameras will do well when the conditions are ideal, and for "lowest common denominator" uses (like small onscreen JPEGs, which are a great equalizer).

The better the camera, the better it will cope with conditions further and further from ideal, and the better more demanding applications (like large fine prints) will look.

In my own mind I think of this as the "center" of camera performance vs. the "edges." The "edges" are where the imaging system as a whole is stressed in any way—working at or near the limits of any of its various capabilities. I wrote quite a long article about this once, although that discussion is limited to lenses.

It just depends on your uses and your needs. If you will only ever take pictures outdoors in full daylight of medium-distant, moderate contrast subjects, destined for onscreen JPEGs, then (presuming you're happy with the results, as you seem to be here) the lesser camera should serve you fine.

Usually, it's frustration that indicates the need for upgrading—butting up against limitations. If you use your iPhone camera a lot and never feel the need for anything more, then you're fine. If you use it a lot and frequently find yourself frustrated or limited by it for one reason or another, then it's probably time for a better camera (or in your case, to get the Pentax out).

Hope this helps—

Mike

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Hello Mike,
I would be very interested to hear your take (and Ctein's) on Adobe's new cloud-only licensing. I presume lots of others have sent this in, but wanted to make sure. One interesting place to read is Scott Kelby's site, which has just exploded with angry comments.

Cheers,
C.

Hi Mike,
They're burning up the keyboards over at DPReview, talking about Adobe's new monthly pricing model for their Creative Suite products [...].

B.

Hi Mike,
Why aren't you covering the Adobe furor?

M.L.

Mike replies: Because it is a furor (aptly chosen word, good work) and I've been unwilling to open the floodgates of the furor into the placid precincts of TOP. I have other things I'd rather be thinking about.

Everybody hates taxes, and yet they have to be paid. We're all aware of "the Photoshop tax," which many of us have been paying uncomplainingly for years. On the surface of things, it looks like Adobe has just cruelly slapped loyal Photoshop users with a drastic and Draconian tax hike.

On the other hand, I have a good friend who was very bitter about the announcement of OSX—he thought it would break all his legacy software, be difficult and painful to implement, and so forth. He went around saying for some while that he was going to leave Apple because Apple had abandoned him.

Then he switched to OSX—and said "oh." He found it was easy to implement, didn't cause him any inconvenience, and that it worked much better than System 9. Oil was cast upon the roiling waters, and he's been using it ever since. So I think it's probably a good idea to fully understand what Adobe is envisioning here before damning them to the heavens.

Fu•ror, n., 1. a public outburst, esp of protest; uproar. Late 15c., from M.Fr. fureur, from L. furor, related to furia: "rage, passion, fury."*

Mike

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Hi Mike,
You’ve written at some length about the pros and cons (mostly cons) of editioning photographic prints (and I agree with what you say ). My main problem, and I’m sure that many other photographers have the same problem) is on pricing my prints. I am of the opinion that non-editioned prints are infinitely reproducible and therefore should be priced accordingly. I currently charge £75 (US$115) for an A2 sized inkjet print—is that reasonable? Am I shooting myself in the foot with this relatively low price—will people not take my work seriously because it is not 'seriously' priced? This really frustrates me! Sometimes I think that I should lower my prices as artwork should be accessible to everyone and other times I think that my prices are too low and people are put off by cheap artwork.

Any comments would be greatly appreciated!! Cheers,

—Simon Robinson

Hi Simon,
Couple of issues:

1. You are not going to sell very many prints. No insult to you; the only reason I say that is that almost nobody sells very many prints. Therefore, why not make a little money on the rare occasions when you do sell one?

2. Marketing sells prints, not the picture, and not price. So spend your time marketing. And if you spend time marketing, again, why not earn a little money on those occasions when it actually works?

3. You've already said it yourself—people equate high price with high quality and low price with low quality; and, with "Veblen goods," high price with high value and low price with low value. Many people who are rich enough to have a nice photograph to frame and hang on their walls not only don't mind paying the price for a good print, they are actually put off by low prices. When I was an art student in the 1980s, there was a pretty firmly established custom: $250–$350 (£160–£225) was the accepted price range for "student prints," while self-respecting independent working artists charged $600 (£387) and up.

Let me ask you this. A friend in England a while back sent me a link to her "dream home," a former lighthouse keeper's cottage on the coast near Brighton. It was on a cliff overlooking the sea. She was groaning because despite being a modest cottage it cost something like £850,000—very far out of her reach. Then, when the property sold, she sent me a good-naturedly bitter note to the effect that it sold to Londoners who will only use it as a weekend getaway. My question is: How many people who can afford an £850,000 weekend getaway will find a £75 print to be a delightful bargain, much better than a £500 or £5,000 print? You would lose that sale JUST ON PRICE, never mind the picture or print.

Two suggestions on editions:

1. Consider an edition year. When you have a nice new picture, work hard to make your best print of it and run off nine copies or whatever. Label them "Image created 2013, First Printing 2013 in a recto signed edition of seven prints and two artist's proofs." Then you are perfectly free to run off nine more three years from now and label them "Image created 2013, Second Printing 2016, in an edition of seven verso signed prints and two artist's proofs." ("recto" is print-speak for "on the front" and "verso" is "on the back.") You'll never run out of prints to sell, yet the original "vintage" prints are severely limited. And Simon Robinson aficionados can happily disputate over which edition is really "best," which we humans always like to do.

2. Consider doing "real" prints and "repro" prints. The "real" prints must be large and very fine, hopefully superbly crafted in some special technique; sign and mat those and slap a price of £2,500 on them. Then, make a series of much smaller "repro" prints that are unsigned or signed on the back and sell those as "studio prints" to your friends and Aunt Hortense for £75. Make sure everybody who buys a repro print understands full well that they are not buying the "real" print, which is something very different and oh so much finer.

The first option requires you to be organized and consistent, but lets all your prints be uniform, in case that aspect of the second option doesn't appeal to your sensibilities. The second option allows you to tailor your prices to the economic strata of your potential buyers: a high-prestige print for people who don't mind that price and in fact want the assurance that they're getting really good, carefully-done workmanship, and a high value print for those who must stretch their dollars (er, pound notes). Same picture either way, but not the same print.

Hope this helps your thinking…at least a little.  :-)

Mike
(Thanks to our many far-flung correspondents)

*Definition from Collins English Dictionary, etymology from Online Etymology Dictionary, both via dictionary.com.

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TOP's links!

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Justin Watt: "François, clearly the Pentax takes a superior photo. The iPhone missed the boat! ;-) "

Jonathan: "The main difference between the iPhone and a DSLR is that it's easier to whip out your iPhone on a busy street and photograph people without having anyone turn away or make a fuss."

A dear family friend died yesterday. I was gone for the day yesterday and returned home to the news.

And I fear I am about to confront the inadequacy of the other side of my photographic ambitions...my longstanding habit of taking record shots. (What others called "memos" or "memory shots.") Sometime soon I'm sure I'll be combing through my hard drives and contact books to see what pictures I have. Too few, no doubt. What will I have of Ned?

At least I have this. And glad of it.

As his son (my best friend in second grade, still a dear friend) correctly said, "this was a man whom essentially everyone liked."

We had a lot of warning—Ned has suffered health setbacks for years now, almost never complaining. Still, the dreaded event, when it comes, creates an unbalancing wave of loss and sorrow.

Sometimes I feel like I have so few record shots that I would have been better off as a photographer dispensing with any pretense of art or expression and simply put all my energy into recording the mundane but important personal details of my life, days, travels, and friends. I wonder if I would have made just as much "art" that way anyway? It's possible.

Mike

ADDENDUM: And speaking of departed friends, you might remember this post from a year ago about a lost college friend. Well, look what the scallopers on Nantucket Island did for her:

So nice.

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Stephen S. Mack: "'...Recording the mundane but important personal details of my like, days, travels and friends.'? Sounds like a winner to me. It's what I have decided that I'm best at doing, and I'm comfortable, very comfortable with this."

Derek: "My condolences to you, your friend, and everyone else affected by this loss. Given your posts of the last few days about working styles and goals, I've been doing quite a bit of reflecting on what I've been trying to achieve with my own photography; I had basically come to the place where I had decided to lose any pretense at trying to produce something 'artistic' with my photography and simply enjoy photography's exceptional ability to record our lives and the people and events that matter to me/us. And then you post this, a poignant reminder of one of photography's most important roles. Thank you for sharing with us."

Lúcia: "My father died last Friday, his funeral was the following day, and I could hardly watch it. I was there, but I kept my eyes down during the whole service. I'm a visual person and I didn’t want to see anything, to have that scene recorded on my mind.

"The first thing I did when I came home was looking for the only 'recent' shot I took of him. It's on my desk now.

"Last August my photography teacher had asked us an assignment, we should make a portrait of someone close to us for the next class. I didn't want to choose him because I didn't want to have a photo that would remind me of a time he wasn't very well (in health and psychologically), but because of the lack of time, I didn't have other option.

"Every morning after breakfast he used to sit on his favourite spot on the living room to read the newspaper. This was his routine for the last decades. And this was the moment I thought would represent him better.

"I study photography every day, I try to practice on a regular basis, and I never had the 'idea' of photographing him the last couple months, when he was so calm, happy and smiling. I’ll regret this for the rest of my life...."

Malcolm Myers: "I have never really attempted to be artistic; it's simply not something I'm good at. My primary reason for being a photographer has always been to capture the lives of those around me, my nearest and dearest. It always gives me a sense of pride when I walk into friends' homes and see my pictures of them on the wall."

Robert Roaldi: "I have noticed that my parent's generation cherished old photos more than mine. I look through my mother's photo albums and see really interesting family, friend, and rural scenes from pre-WWII Italy. I don't have any such pics of my life, or very few. I wonder if it's because we take photography for granted or because we sort of know instinctively that our temporary suburban "landscape" was not interesting enough to record. Still though, it would be nice to have pics of some people I used to know."

I mentioned last week that I hired an Organizer. She's seriously wonderful, and we're making great progress now.

Uncovering many old photographs and seeing them suddenly again, I'm struck by one overriding thought: I wish to hell I hadn't f@#$!ed around with cameras and techniques so much.

Granted, part of that was necessary: I wasn't talented, focused, driven, or psychologically clear enough to make it as a pure photographer. Not sure I was even interested enough to keep up pure visual work on a day-in, day-out basis. I might not be multi-aptituded, but I have a multitide of interests. And I love to read and write, which isn't part of the pure shooter's brief. And I ended up cracking the monthly nut by learning a variety of techniques, teaching, reviewing cameras, writing articles. It was seldom my job to just take pictures. Gotta make a living.

Still—I had a good, solid, serviceable, robust technique from early on, and I was a much better than average craftsman. How I wish now I'd just stuck to it. Owned my one chosen technique and moved on from there, never deviated. I would have been a much better photographer by now if I had. Well, maybe not better, but much more accomplished.

The irony here is, it's what I always wanted to do. It was always my goal. But I wasn't able to do it.

"Word to the wise."

Mike

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Alan Fairley: "From early on, I've had a definite 'eye' and self-defined as a photographer but for various reasons having to do with the vagiaries of life have completely dropped photography for close to 10-year stretches a couple of times. There will always be the thoughts of 'what if' but, in the end, so what? The important thing is that I am getting such deep soul-satisfying pleasure from it now."

I'm feeling the need to change the subject this morning, but before we do, I thought I might mention one more thing. As I was reading more about Shaw-Pellegrin yesterday, it occurred to me that maybe the contest organizers need to make it more clear exactly what it is they're rewarding...good photographs, or good journalism?

There does seem to be a disconnect between the two, frequently. I've found the same thing in my infrequent attempts at "photo essays": there are some pictures you get along the way that are good pictures; and then there are some pictures that are needed in order to tell the story accurately, but that aren't good pictures. No matter how good you are, nobody can tell a story in pictures honestly in which every picture is as good as the best one.

It's always seemed to me that this is a very major tension in photography...almost all photography. You can make it look good, or you can make it true to the subject, but, very often, you can't do both at the same time.

I even have a name for those aesthetically drab 'n' dispiriting but accurate and informative frames: "record shots." And I've always conceived that about half my shooting consists of record shots, meant to record a memory: I was here. I did this. I was with this person. I saw this. That sort of thing. Sometimes the record shots do turn out to be good photographs too, and I love it when that happens. But it's relatively rare.

Despite my fealty in principle to the ideal of honesty in photographs, I almost always fall on the side of good pictures. Those are the ones that move me, that I care about.

Of course, I'm not trying to be a journalist, nor am I charged with being one. I'm just an amateur, doing what I want to do. That's the way I like it. Saves me from having to worry too much about this sort of thing.

Mike

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MM: "'Maybe the contest organizers need to make it more clear exactly what it is they're rewarding...good photographs, or good journalism?'

"Very interesting observation. I see corollaries in the fields I work with: publication design (readability and larger type vs. smaller type that is treated more as a graphic element than as the main point of the publication); interior architecture (day-to-day livability vs. the kind of visual drama that photographs well); signage design (practicality, prominence, and clarity vs. the kind of subtle/spare/elegant stylishness that looks beautiful on a wall); and website design (fast-loading, structurally simple pages vs. stylish but complex and slower-loading pages). We won't get started on vehicles—or industrial design of things like cameras—but in all of these cases one can see how prominent industry awards may reward something other than what many end-users might assume the awards would be 'about.'

"As you note, there is no consistently 'right' approach, not even within a single individual (a guy may care what his car looks like but not his apartment, while his spouse may feel the opposite). But there's no doubt that awards usually reward one kind of excellence in a way that many end-users actually may not care too much about. Online commentary and discussions like this can help the public figure out which kind of excellence the award is honoring—and how that relates to what each individual thinks is important."

Michel Hardy-Vallée: "Whenever I read about photo-reportage controversies like the current one, I can't help but go back to the famous 2009 Paris Match award-winning (then award-losing, as soon as they revealed the hoax in the acceptance speech) faux-cumentary essay 'Mention Rien' ('graded nil') on the poverty and precarity of French students.

"The premise is simple: by respecting all the codes of 'concerned' photojournalism, the two students convincingly submitted to a major news contest a reportage that was 100% staged. The captions under the portraits describe the situation of students having to forage to eat, share cramped spaces, work many odd jobs, prostitute themselves, or live in dire conditions, in order to be able to continue their studies.

"They won the prize because photojournalism is essentially constructed on a trust contract: the only guarantee for the veracity of the images is ultimately the photographer's word (Ctein addressed that below). But there's a Borgesian paradox as well: you cannot distinguish a staged image from a non-staged one just by looking at it.

"In other words, they destroyed the idea that photos have essentially any intrinsic truth-value, and showed that whatever truth-value they have must be governed by a practice of interpretation (which obviously can be fooled).

"It is nevertheless an interesting, and I would say touching work, even when you are well aware of the forgery. On the one hand, these guys know their aesthetics, and if you're sensitive to that kind of style, you can only admire their eye. On the other hand, student poverty is a reality, and most people experience dire straits during the course of their studies, especially if they happen to fall outside of the ideal life style enshrined in official policies: students living at home or benefitting from parental support, allowing them to work little and spend time on their studies.

"Student loans are calculated on a purported parental contribution, not on an actual one, so if your parents are rich bastards, the government considers they support you and won't provide loans.

"The set of imaginary characters the two fauxtographers have devised is a fine collection of problem cases, and the verisimilitude is polished: their troubles are not too extreme, despite being beyond what anyone would consider an ideal situation, and their distress is at the same time counterbalanced by a will to get by and not linger pathetically on their misery.

"It's a great work of fiction. And unlike the case at hand, there has been no sidestepping of all the ethical and ideological issues their action involved. These are people who wanted to wreck the system, but at the same time they reinforced the power of storytelling beyond its truth-value. They took full credit for the controversy, and never attempted to have their cake and eat it too."

robert e: "'...What it is they're rewarding...good photographs, or good journalism?'

"Apparently more the former. After some reading and listening on WPP's website it's pretty clear that the priority is to find 'dramatic,' 'powerful,' 'beautiful,' 'poetic' images and series that 'reach out and grab' and 'pull you in.' This seems consistent with the stated purpose of the contest, which is to promote the 'inspirational role of photojournalism.'

"The jury chair statements are here.

"I think the Nature prize winner is a perfect example of great photographs being great journalism, and even good science. But that, I suppose, is not very surprising given what nature photography entails vs. documenting human news.

"On a meta level, the most disturbing winner for me—even more so than Pellegrin's infamous staged shot, though there are important similarities—is Xiaoqun Zheng's second prize in the Nature category. This series simply and shockingly takes familiar tropes from photojournalism about incarcerated humans and applies it to animals in zoos. It of course raises questions about our treatment of both humans and animals, but to my mind it also raises questions about the practice and conventions of the craft, and about what it is we're looking at, looking for, and honoring with contests like these.

"I also found interesting the Nature jury chair's account of demanding the Raw file of an eventual winning image to verify that its striking colors were not the result of post processing, and his comment about 'documentary' pretensions."

I have an organizer coming today. She's actually appeared on the A&E show "Hoarders." (She says I'm not a hoarder and my house "isn't bad." It's possible she's being nice to me.)

Regarding stuff, I can recommend the book Stuff (see below). But I especially recommend this recent post on Eolake Stobblehouse Thoughts. Carlin really was the Master: funny enough but very true.

Eolake is also enamored of the Paperwhite, and I keep waffling over it. I want one. My problem is that my first-gen Kindle is still fine...(re the "Featured Comment" in the D7100 post).

Mike

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A book of interest today:

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I probably shouldn't admit this, because I'm supposed to act like big serious Mr. Expert and all (although I'm not much for pretense and ostentation, as you might know if you've been reading me for a while—cf. the book link at the bottom of this post), but here goes: I actually kind like those jokey collections of cutesy/funny pictures that the Internet is full of. Not the sort of pictures I should be looking at? I guess. But we all look at more kinds of pictures than we can even categorize. It's almost like breathing the air. Lot of chaff in those, of course, but the gems that fall past really are gems.

A photograph at its most basic can tell us something true about the world, or about human beings, or animals, or about something that happened...not "Truth," capital T, but just truths. Little ones.

It's the main thing that separates it from art. It can be more about Observation than Creation. Note caps.

I have a friend who passes these along sometimes. Here's one that made me actually "LOL" (he's all gung-ho about the start of baseball season):

Hilarious. Very human, seems to me. Also very photographic in its essence—not something an artist might think to invent. (Also something you might look at and not even "get" unless you were thinking about it. I think we humans "see mindlessly" the great majority of the time.)

Here's one the same friend also sent me:

He has no idea where it came from. Anybody know anything about it?

This picture strikes me as funny, yes, but poignant as well, and layered—it says a lot about photography, about human concerns with image, in the sense of status and appearances, meta-concerns about truth and falsification, about imagination, about the ideal versus the real, even about hope in the face of despair. It's a wonderful photograph about photography.

I want to know more about it.

Mike
(Thanks to Kim)

UPDATE: It's from the AP, captioned, "A photographer uses his own backdrop to mask Poland's World War II ruins while shooting a portrait in Warsaw in November of 1946. (AP Photo/Michael Nash)." A big thanks to sepp and several others for the information.

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A book of interest today:

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Featured Comments from:

Kenneth Tanaka: "'...Not something an artist might think to invent.' Exactly. These are scenes that only work as photography. Paintings and drawings might be cute but they would not carry the testimonial value that a photograph carries. Further, one way to measure your progress as a photographer is whether or not you're consistently able to see and capture such moments."

John Wilson: "The camera the photographer is using is interesting. It looks like one of those old street box cameras which used paper negatives and were developed inside the camera. Apparently they are still being used in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There's a very interesting site that goes into some depth about how they are used."

Stan B.: "Apparently, they've reconstructed Old Town Warsaw down to the very last detail—not necessarily as it once was, but as an Italian painter once imagined it to be...."

Mike replies: Good post; good find. I'd like to see it anyway, just for what it is. They don't have this reputation here, so much, but Polish craftsmanship can be amazing.

Chris Lucianu: "After looking at the picture of the photographer using a trompe-everything-backdrop, read the entry on the planned destruction of Warsaw, then look again at the picture. I think it deserves quite a caption.

Likewise, if you look at the page linked to by Stan B., don't just read the brief intro (which I find condensed to almost the point of flippancy). Do yourself a favour and listen to the audio feature untangling the threads of a story as poignant as it is complicated, courtesy of Amy Drozdowska, Michał Murawski and Dave McGuire. Or, taking a somewhat less post-modern view, read art historian Małgorzata Omilanowska's Views of Warsaw by Bernardo Bellotto Called Canaletto and their Role in the Reconstruction of Warsaw's Monuments. Vana Tallinn (2010), if you can obtain it (and kudos if you do).

It becomes clear that the post-war reconstruction team led by Jan Zachwatowicz aimed at re-creating the aspect of an ideal late-Baroque Warsaw (with its Gothic and Renaissance heritage) as it would have existed at the time of Stanisław August Poniatowski, the last Polish king. Bernardo Bellotto's alleged 'imagination' can hardly be faulted. On the contrary, Bellotto was an astonishingly accurate painter of urban landscapes, who used a camera obscura to draw minute documentary sketches which were then integrated into a grand veduta. (Perhaps it is a good opportunity to remind ourselves of the synthetic aspect of painting as opposed to snapshots.)

I spent some time last year studying Bellotto in Dresden, the other center of the painter's activity; and also a city victim of the war, although, unlike Warsaw, a a more haphazard victim. It takes some time to realise that Bellotto was a painter of the social fabric as well as of architecture. The passing of time would have sufficed to transform the buildings he minutely documented into as much a trompe-l'esprit as the Warsaw photographer's canvas. But now, with his paintings more 'original' than the very cityscapes they depicted, we might as well be painting on a mirror.

Andrew Molitor: "I actually wrote a little thing about the 'meme' thing, where you take a picture and apply a caption and get that pseudo-motivational poster.

"It's actually a great lesson in how a caption alters our perception of a photograph. You can take the same photo of some dumb cat, apply 30 captions to it, and create 30 quite different 'experiences of the image.' The captions tend to drive a little imagined narrative to go with the image, and the successful ones drive quite a strong narrative.

"So, they're not just silly funny fun things! They have a little something to teach us about art and the human brain!"

I've spent the last several days of "time off" doing a number of things—working on my old list of "226 Books by Genre," which has already sucked up hundreds of hours of time and could stand another hundred; thinking about the past and future of TOP (including a few odd 'n' ends, pace Ctein on Wednesday*); and writing down some of my personal aims and ambitions, so I can attempt to prioritize.

Of course, that list turns out to be rather funny. A few items plucked from it that are cases in point:

• Fix up my old Miata
• Sell my old Miata and use the dough to buy something else cheap and fun

• Use the D800 more
• Sell the D800 while there's still time

• Rehab the house**
• Consider moving

• Increase the number of daily posts on TOP
• Make the posts fewer in number but longer and better

• Print a portfolio of old 35mm Tri-X negatives
• Forget printing old negs, publish a book of them instead

...And so on. It's a good thing I'm a blogger; it seems well adapted to the limit of my attention span.

I see the doctors next on Monday. I have very high hopes for what adequate sleep might do for me. Will it improve...decisiveness? Organization skills? Will I suddenly be able to play the piano?

Mike

*I've left quite a few loose ends dangling in the past, turns out, such as the Canon Pro-1 printer and the Reader Print Sale.

**"Redecorate" is far too grand a word here, take my word.  :-)

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A book of interest today:

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Oren Grad: "This is the fate of a pack rat."

richardplondon: "I keep getting distracted from my 'to do' li [sic]"

Ed. Note: Oren's link above was to an eBay auction entitled "Huge lot of old cameras collection for Sale [sic]. 1,000+ pieces":

It was being offered at $35,000. (I'd actually seen it before on eBay, for higher prices.) And what do you know, it actually sold!

Even odds as to whether it will be worth it for the buyer. The price of $35 per camera seems low, but I'll bet an awful lot of the cameras aren't worth $35 and I'll bet they're also not very liquid, meaning it'd take a lot of time and effort to get $35 back out of each of them.

On the other hand, throughput is how collectors find the gems—I actually knew a camera collector in Chicago who opened a used camera store just so he could cherry pick what came through. It's not impossible that a few dozen of the cameras could make the whole pile break even. Interesting situation. I'd love to know more about this, too. —Mike

We're finally getting a little winter here, which is nice. This morning like most Americans I'm watching the Inaugural. Fifty-seven of them and counting...although I recently finished reading a book about the end of the Roman Republic, which is casting a slight pall on the horizon of my mood. But it's a nice day in Washington.

Big day for poets, too—the Inauguration is probably the highest-profile appearance of a poet in public life these days. This time it's Richard Blanco, whose poem is sounding a bit like a speech—but then, the official poetry of occasions has never been that medium's highest height. Too bad we don't have a little more room for poetry in public life these days.

More soon....

Mike

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A book of interest today:

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Bob (partial comment): "The book of interest, The Country Between Us, is a remarkable book ,and its author a remarkable person. It was one of the first serious and political poetry books to be recognized by the mainstream press in a very long time. 'The Colonel' is a particularly powerful and accessible poem.

"I had the pleasure of taking a week long workshop with Ms. Forche soon after the book was published. She stressed that poets needed to be more political. People were listening to her. It was an exciting time to be following poetry."

James Rhem: "I think you are being a little hard on Blanco's poem. For occasional verse, it was not bad at all. A photographer ought to have appreciated his use of 'light' as a recurrent device aiming at bringing 'enlightenment' and thoughtful observation to the great daily sweep of America."