For many years, I’ve harbored a secret conviction that digital cameras delude us into believing we’re much better photographers than we really are. Snapping up-down and willy-nilly with a blithe disregard for focus, exposure, composition, context, pathos, ethos, irony or significance is a sure-fire way to take a lot of crappy photos. But digital cameras [...]
We live in an era where sharpness, literalness and hyperrealism dominate the modern photographic terrain. In spite of this, my own photography is actually informed by the golden age photojournalists of the 1930s and 1940s, post-war photo essays from the 1950s, and John Szarkowski’s New Documentarian leanings of the 1960s. I wasn’t always this anachronistic. Rather, [...]
I photograph people. On the streets and in public places, my eye and my camera keep a vigilant lookout for the little nuances that help define what it means to be human. Because of this somewhat curious behaviour, I’ve been cursed at, chased and threatened, yet I don’t resent when these street confrontations occur. They’re [...]
Many people assume that writing product reviews is all ice cream and pony rides. After all, who among us wouldn’t desire free use of the latest, shiniest wonder-widget for a week or two? So when I tell you that Leica lent me their new 21mm Super-Elmar-M f/3.4 ASPH for review purposes, you’re excused for concluding [...]
When confronted with the task of comparing two fundamentally disparate objects, cliché-wielding literary hacks frequently assert the two objects are “as different as night and day.” It’s a quick and effective means to punctuate one’s argument that each object is utterly unique and should thus be considered on its own merits. Being somewhat of a [...]
Do you have a term paper to write for photography class? Are you looking to impress a hot hipster with a lomography fetish? Do you suffer from attention deficit disorder? Then this is the article for you. It’s nothing more than a mathematically-challenged baker’s dozen of my own personal photography quotes — unadorned with tedious [...]
It began so innocently. These things often do. With my Leica M2 in hand, I was walking the street and scrutinizing the ordinary life that ebbed and flowed ahead of my purposeful gate. Many of these excursions are unremarkable, but every so often the sky parts and an improbable cluster of events intersect into a [...]
In 1952, pianist David Tudor stepped on stage to perform composer John Cage’s latest work, 4’33″. He sat at the piano, closed the lid over the keyboard and, for the next 4 minutes and 33 seconds, played absolutely nothing. The point of this — John Cage’s most notorious composition — was to illustrate that ambient [...]
A pessimist would suggest that I’m a painfully slow learner. An optimist would opine that I’m refreshingly open-minded. Both would draw their conclusion from the same exact occurrence — my conversion to rangefinder photography after 20 years of shooting SLRs. It’s now been over two years since this fateful switch and I’ve documented the process, [...]
Last week I was strolling home along Granville Street, my guard down and my mind wandering, when something tickled my photographic subconsciousness. Experience has taught me to trust the tickle. Things happen fast on the streets. “Shoot first, comprehend later.” That’s my motto. I fired off a shot just as the tickle began to coagulate [...]
As recounted in Part 1, I recently purchased a 1967 Leica 135 f/4 Tele-Elmar lens and committed to discussing its merits for The Leica Blog. There’s only one problem — I wield a 135 with about as much skill and finesse as a monkey with a scalpel. Before I dive into the meat of this [...]
This is an article about failure — a post to which my fellow photographers can all point and exclaim, “See! That’s what happens to morons.” Like most stories with a moral, this one begins “once upon a time” (four long months ago) when I finally decided to part ways with my Canon cameras, lenses and [...]
Do you remember where you were in the autumn of 2008 when, drunk with greed, all the bankers in the world stripped naked, strapped on barrels lined with our life savings and plummeted over Niagara Falls? I do. I had just completed a successful stint as the official photographer for BC Parks and was negotiating [...]
Assume you’re a photographer (which, since you’re reading this article, is likely a safe assumption). Assume you maintain some sort of photo blog (which, if you’re struggling to compete in today’s net-centric world, had better be a safe assumption). Assume further that you have a, umm, slightly unnatural love for Leica M-System rangefinders (a single, [...]
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