HOLLY LAKE RANCH, Texas (KLTV) – An East Texas man remembers his time over a 50 year career as a photoghrapher, taking some of the most iconic images in sports.
Retired and living in Holly Lake Ranch now, 82-year-old Gary Edwards is not a household name. But, it’s a sure bet that sometime in your life you’ve seen one of his iconic sports pictures.
He worked for United Press International for decades, taking photographs of sports and politics, and his images have graced the covers of numerous newspapers and magazines such as LIFE and Sports Illustrated.
He’s covered 14 super bowls, 8 Masters golf tournaments and countless other events from baseball to the Olympics, with many of his photos held as a standard of excellence in photography.
It was a bizarre picture from a 1955 college football game between Princeton and Cornell that Edwards said propelled him to a career.
Back in March, Graeme Chesters, the first recipient of AP’s Rising Star Bursary, made his second trip to document the people and landscape around Longyearbyen – the most northerly town in the world, located on the Island of Spitsbergen in the Svalbard archipelago (you can read about his first trip here).
The bursary, arranged in partnership with leading used specialist MPB, gives amateur photographers a unique opportunity to work on a long-term project on the theme of ‘Change’. Graeme received up to £5,000 in expenses, along with mentoring and support from top pro Peter Dench and the AP team, while MPB is providing him with an ongoing photography-kit loan from its extensive supply of quality used gear.
All pictures credit Graeme Chesters
Impressive – and worrying Graeme began by explaining how he noticed more changes in the landscape on this second trip. “When you start moving out of Longyearbyen, travelling with a dog team to get out into the more remote areas, you can witness some impressive and sometimes worrying sights. I visited some of the ice caves in Scott Turnerbreen Glacier, for example, (below) and it was quite revealing. The caves get cut out by melt water in the summer season, which creates a gap, and then they refreeze. So they are different every year.
In the strata of the caves you can see periods of change – all sorts of things are recorded. Glaciologists use the air that is trapped in bubbles to examine and test for carbon levels, so they can see the change in composition in terms of the atmosphere.
What you also see is the advent of certain algae and bacteria in the ice at different points, particularly over the last few years. There has been more rain in recent years and the temperature can now vary widely. When we arrived at the caves the temperature got as low as – 32. But as we were leaving there was a day where it got above freezing, and it rained. That is quite catastrophic – you remove the opportunity for people to travel by snowmobile, because of all a sudden the routes they are using round the town melt quickly and you have flood conditions.
Also when the routes refreeze, there is ice on top of snow, which makes life very difficult for reindeer trying to dig through the snow to get to the tundra for food.’
Ice on the move Meltwater can also accelerate the movement of glaciers – quite literally, as Graeme explains. ‘It’s quite frightening – as the temperatures rise, particularly during the summer period, and meltwater manages to work its way through the glacier and get to the bottom, it creates a surface for the glaciers to move and slip more quickly. A glacier moves to the sea anyway, but water underneath can move it much more quickly.’
As Graeme wryly notes, nobody in Longyearbyen believes climate change isn’t happening – they can see it happening all around them. ‘The locals told me I needed to be extra careful in places where before there was a semi-permanent ice and far more predictability. On another occasion pancake and sea ice largely melted in a couple of days and was blown back out into the fjord – the fjords used to freeze and you could walk across them, now they freeze and unfreeze.’
There is also an increased risk of avalanches. ‘We had to avoid going through one narrow passage as the temperature had warmed up by 10 degrees, increasing the risk of avalanche. Travelling along the bottom of a narrow valley was too dangerous.’
Graeme’s gear For this second trip, Graeme took a Fujifilm X-T4, a Fujifilm 50-140mm f/2.8 lens, the Fujifilm 33mm f/1.4 and the 18mm f/1.4 primes and an X-100V as a back-up – all carefully checked and supplied by MPB.
“All the kit stood up really well,’ Graeme reports. ‘The new batteries in the XT4 lasted a lot better, and anyway, you are keeping them inside down jackets, as close to your body as possible, to keep them warm.
However, a NISI filter on the X-1OOV exploded on me – their glass is normally very good but this one just shattered.’
Most of the landscape shots on this second trip were taken handheld. ‘Setting up a tripod when out with a dog sled or on a snowmobile was just too dangerous in terms of frostbite. Anything you touch can cause problems, as the metal can stick to your skin, causing a freezer burn. There are 6.5 stops of in-body image stabilisation on the X-T4, and I’m using the 50-140mm which is also stabilised, so I can shoot handheld with confidence.’
Graeme found some other kit wasn’t quite up to scratch, however. ‘I also took a GoPro Hero 10, but once the temperature went below – 15, it reported the battery was too cold and refused to work. I was quite surprised about that. The Fujifilm kit was brilliant in the extreme cold, though, it’s overengineered in this respect.’
Industrial landscapes Graeme also got some interesting shots around Coles Bay, the site of long-abandoned mines, some of which were owned by enterprises from the former Soviet Union. ‘The old Soviet-controlled mines were abandoned in early 80, but because nothing rots there because of the temperature, it’s all preserved. There is still all the equipment around the pit head, while the dormitories, which were also used as a stopping off point for other travellers, revealed old Russian newspapers from the 80s.
Then you come across shelves with flour, live rounds of ammunition, whisky, vodka…It’s an interesting and moving environment but there is also a significant polar bear risk. When you are wandering around with the wind howling outside and the snow piling up, it really brings home what it must have been like during the Soviet era, doing a tough job in a very tough industry.’
Ever-changing light ‘As a photographer, I was really struck by the way the landscape responds to light on this second trip, and the return of the sun,’ Graeme adds. ‘On top of the mountain range opposite Longyearbyen you go through every pastel shade, depending on how cloudy it is… pinks to burnt ambers to oranges, and it’s so incredibly dramatic. It is changing constantly. Your eyes are constantly being drawn by the re-emergence of light, which dramatizes the landscape – I probably got the best part of 2,500 photos as I was so fascinated by how the light is constantly changing.’
The sun came back – or more accurately, rose – in mind February, but because Longyearbyen is in a valley, the sunlight doesn’t actually reach the town until March 8th. ‘Within six weeks you move straight through the return of the sun through to the midnight sun from April 18th. So you get long extended blue hours and the way the snow is affected by the refracted light across the valley is quite incredible. That is the one thing I would really draw me back. There light there is different to anything else I have seen.’
So what were the biggest lessons Graeme learned on this second trip in terms of his landscape photography? ‘You learn to look at lot more closely at the relationship between the sea and the land, and the constant movement between water, ice and snow,’ he explains. ‘I find it fascinating the way ice forms, particularly pancake ice. You see circles emerge as ice bashes off other pieces and is moved by waves. Both trips have made me pay more attention to processes in the landscape that are changing that landscape bit-by-bit and day-by-day. You can come back to the same place but light will be different, not to mention the structures you will be seeing in the ice and the snow too. This landscape really demands your close attention and I hope to take that concentration to other locations too.’
Here comes the sun Now well known to the local community, Graeme also attended the annual festival to mark the return of the sun on March 4th. ‘There are competing stories about the ‘Sykehustrrapa’ – the (old) Hospital Steps where the community gathers to mark the return of the sun, and some discussion as to who rebuilt them after they were destroyed by German bombardment in WW2,’ he explains. ‘The first sunrise takes place in mid-February on Svalbard, but the mountains surrounding Longyearbyen shield the community from direct sunlight until the beginning of March, and the story goes that patients were wheeled out to greet it and so the hospital marks the point at which the sun’s return is heralded. In this version the steps were left to remain when the hospital was moved to the centre of town, both as a reminder and focus for this tradition.’
Local schoolchildren celebrate the return of the sun in early March
About Graeme Chesters Graeme is a photographer and writer based in the North West. After 20 years working as an academic, including a stint as an associate professor at the University of Bradford, he is now working freelance on a variety of photographic and journalistic projects. Graeme is also a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Geographical Society. See graemechesters.com.
Further reading Documenting climate change in one of the fastest-warming places on the planet Recording the consequences of climate change Why buying used camera gear is better for the natural world
The Xperia 1 lineup of phones is known for its camera and this year’s flagship phone – Sony Xperia 1 IV is no different. The fourth iteration of Xperia 1 comes with a flagship grade triple-lens camera setup, this year’s model comes with an innovative optical telephoto lens alongside the improved 12MP camera sensors. In terms of software, the Xperia phones come with Photography Pro camera app as well as the feature-packed stock camera app, but still if you are looking for a GCam mod. Here you can download Google Camera for Sony Xperia 1 IV.
Google Camera for Sony Xperia 1 IV [GCam 8.6]
Sony Xperia 1 IV dawns a triple-lens camera setup and a 3D ToF camera sensor on the back. In terms of details, the setup features a primary 12MP SonyIMX 557 1/1.7″ sensor and a 12MP ultra-wide-angle SonyIMX 563 sensor. Whereas the third snapper is a 12MP SonyIMX 650 telephoto camera. The built-in camera app comes with a bunch of photography features including the trendy burst mode, which we have seen on the last year’s Sony Xperia 1 III. There’s no doubt the default camera app on Xperia phones capture stunning photos, but if you are looking for a good alternative then you can install the Pixel 7 camera app on your phone.
There are a number of Google Camera ports available for Android phones, developers had ported the Pixel 7’s GCam mod for many phones, the latest beta is compatible with the Xperia 1 IV. The Google Camera mod comes with a number of useful features including Astrophotography mode, Night Sight, SloMo, Beauty Mode, HDR Enhanced, Lens Blur, PhotoSphere, Playground, RAW support, Google Lens, and more with GCam 8.4 port. Now let’s take a look at the steps on how to download and install Google Camera app on Sony Xperia 1 IV.
Download Google Camera for Sony Xperia 1 IV
Sony Xperia 1 IV is a premium flagship smartphone which comes with Camera2 API support. Yes, the phone allows you to easily install the GCam app on your phone. Below we attach the latest version of GCam port by BSG – GCam 8.6 and the more compatible GCam 8.1. You can use Astrophotography and Night Sight in these ports.
Both GCam ports are not fully compatible with the Xperia 1 IV, GCam 8.1 works fine with the back sensors, but the front camera mode not working properly.
Note: Before Installing the new Gcam Mod ported app, make sure to delete the older version (if you’ve installed). This is not a stable version of Google Camera, so it may have some bugs.
If you want better results, then you can follow the below steps and add a configuration file.
Recommended Settings:
For MGC_8.1.101_A9_GV2b_ENG.apk
At first, download this config file from above-listed links on your smartphone.
Now open File Manager then head over to the Downloads folder.
Create a new folder under Downloads, with MGC.8.1.101_Configs name.
Open MGC.8.1.101_Configs folder and paste the config file here.
That’s it.
Now open the Google Camera then swipe down to open settings, under Settings tap on Configs then load the config file download earlier.
For GCam 8.6 there’s no need to configure many settings, but still, you can play with GCam settings according to your needs for better results.
If you’ve any query, drop a comment down in the comment box. Also, share this article with your friends.
Japanese photographer Masayuki Oki captures comedic stray cats on the streets. This Tokyo-based photographer is not your usual street photographer, instead of photographing urban landscapes, street style, or architecture, his lens targets the cute little wanderers of Tokyo.
He fills his social media pages with his quirky and often hilarious photos that show cats fighting amount themselves, sitting in odd positions, and generally living up to their weird reputation. Masayuki’s photography has attracted a solid fanbase with 290k followers on his Instagram account.
Check out some of his stunning shots in the gallery below. Please check his more amazing work on his Instagram account.
Keith Beven is Emeritus Professor of Hydrology at Lancaster University where he has worked for over 30 years. He has published many academic papers and books on the study and computer modelling of hydrological processes. Since the 1990s he has used mostly 120 film cameras, from 6×6 to 6×17, and more recently Fuji X cameras when travelling light.
He has recently produced a second book of images of water called “Panta Rhei – Everything Flows” in support of the charity WaterAid that can be ordered from his website.
mallerstangmagic.co.uk
There is nothing as mysterious as a fact clearly described.~Garry Winogrand1
When looking for positive guidance from philosophy, we must rest content
with some vague generalizations about the need to be specific.~Alan Chalmers2
Do you really need a philosophy for your photography? Clearly not! We take photos all the time for all sorts of reasons, sometimes thinking about our technique but almost always without thinking about any philosophical implications. Indeed, philosophy is not very good at providing definite answers to the problems we encounter but can be good at defining the questions we need to think about. So, this might be a question worth thinking about if only because as, consciously or not, we develop a style of things we like to take photos of that might reflect a certain philosophy. Mostly, I suspect that amongst landscape photographers, this will be one of the varieties of realism 3, particularly if the things that we like to take photos of are those that reflect and record our experiences in the landscape. This recording of our experiences might be done for a variety of reasons: to provide income as a professional, in the hope of impressing our peers, or simply to record our personal experiences and life journey without necessarily being shown to others.
Do you really need a philosophy for your photography? Clearly not! We take photos all the time for all sorts of reasons, sometimes thinking about our technique but almost always without thinking about any philosophical implications.
Most of the well-known, more philosophical writers about photography (Susan Sontag, John Berger, etc) did not have too much to say about landscapes. Vilém Flusser, who wrote Thoughts on the Philosophy of Photography (1983), also hardly touches on landscape, even if his concept of differentiating informative from redundant images has only become more relevant in the digital age4. His idea that, as photographers, we are complicit supporters of the post-industrial economic complex is also still relevant, at least to those of us who suffer from that gear acquisition syndrome.
We can, of course, turn to Guy Tal and his recent series of philosophical On Landscape articles and his books More than a Rock and Another Day Not Wasted for more direct commentary on the act of photographing the landscape and living with nature as an artistic endeavour.
The primary reason to practice any art, in my opinion, is the subjective experience of the artist. Whether the resulting work falls into any greater philosophical framework, or whatever information it may contribute, can only be considered as measures of importance or validity in an objective, academic, or practical sense; but to find satisfaction in one’s work, to elevate (using Thoreau’s words) “the quality of the day,” and other subjective aspects that may arise from practicing photography or any other creative work, are more than sufficient justification for doing it.~Guy Tal, 2020 5
A number of previous articles in On Landscape are relevant here, particularly those that discuss the nature of realism in photography 6. For many landscape photographers a certain degree of honesty or realism in the presentation of an image is important (hence the Natural Landscape Photography Awards, NPLA7 ). We can perhaps contrast this with landscape photography as a creative act where there is an active choice not to present an image in a realistic way. Some examples in photography are the use of photomontage (for example, David Hockney’s Joiner collages), extreme post-processing (colour saturation, HDR, time stacking, sky replacement, element removal etc), and the use of intentional camera movement. Such images can still have realistic elements (e.g. each of the images in a time stacked image or a Hockney joiner), but the philosophical aim is evidently not to be realistic but to provide an alternative artistic view of the world, to go beyond the limitations of the two dimensional view of an instantaneous single image. Hockney’s joiners, in particular, have resonance back to the cubist and conceptual artists at the start of the 20th Century (Braque, Picasso, Delaunay, Gris, Duchamp and others) who strived to move from a mimetic to an expressive art8. As David Hockney commented in 1982 before exhibiting his early joiner collages (a couple of the more landscape examples are included here):
Photography is all right if you don’t mind looking at the world
from the point of view of a paralyzed cyclops – for a split second.~David Hockney, 19829
David Hockney, Pearblossom Hwy., 11-18th April 1986 No. 1
David Hockney, Merced River, Yosemite Valley, 1982
Of course, the boundary between these categories of realism and artistic expression is somewhat fluid. Take the simple case of a waterfall recorded using a shutter speed of ¼ second or longer10. The water becomes blurred. All the better to demonstrate the patterns of water flow perhaps, but we do not see water like that. It is not realistic in the sense of our experience; even if after long exposure (so to speak) to such images we understand what is going on and how it relates to the actual experience of water falling. It is already a creative interpretation, albeit surrounded by realistic renditions of the adjacent rocks and vegetation. This is a simple example of how a photograph can be a “noble lie”11.
Of course, the boundary between these categories of realism and artistic expression is somewhat fluid. Take the simple case of a waterfall recorded using a shutter speed of ¼ second or longer. The water becomes blurred.
We could take this example further. Let us say it is autumn and a selection of colourful leaves have fallen onto the rocks adjacent to the waterfall from the surrounding trees. We can then reflect on the opportunity to arrange those leaves in a pleasing pattern, giving prominence to the most colourful in the foreground, perhaps using tilt or focus stacking to get the depth of field required. The colours can be enhanced in camera by slight underexposure. We can, in fact, treat the composition like an artist as a still life – “improving” the arrangement and representation of the elements in the image. Everything in the image is “real” (as recorded in the RAW file); but much has already been manipulated It is perhaps a simple example of a “less-than-noble lie”. More extreme cases (such as sky replacement that is provided in several post-processing programmes now) might then be considered as “ignoble lies” (or, to many, perhaps the application of artistic license). A painter artist might traditionally have had more flexibility in choosing not to include everything in the scene, but even that is now less of an advantage with AI-aided element deletion. In viewing an image, it is sometimes possible to identify ignoble lies, but the degree of post-processing in the final image is not always obvious and might only be revealed by the meta-data or comparison with an original RAW file (hence the requirement to provide such files with submissions to the NPLA).
So are you a naïve realist?
In philosophy there are many forms of realism12. The concept has been the subject of argument since the time of the Greek philosophers, notably Plato and Aristotle. Many well-known names have contributed to the debate about realism and, in particular, the potential differences between our experiential perception of objects as conditioned by the brain and the actual characteristics of those objects, what Kant referred to as the thing-in-itself (Das Ding an sich13). The fundamental problem of realism is that what we experience may not be the nature of reality. When viewing a rock in the landscape, we can experience that rock through our senses, but we cannot be sure that those sensations reveal the true nature of the rock, nor everyone will see the form and colours of that rock in the same way (and none of us see it in exactly the same way as recorded by a film of digital sensor)14.
Scientifically, of course, we can dig deeper. We can analyse the minerals and chemical composition of that rock and can infer things about its history using analyses of its isotopes, magnetic properties, thermoluminescence and surface lichen growth, but those inferences will still depend on the observational techniques available to us (which themselves depend on some theoretical constructs about the nature of matter that might be superseded in future).
The naïve realist will see a rock and not think anymore about it. It exists (at least in this realisation of the multiverse) and is there to be photographed in the landscape.
Going deeper still, we meet the limitations of understanding associated with the inherently uncertain sub-atomic quantum world. That need not concern us here; we can assume that the quantum probabilities are resolved in a way that reveals the apparently unchanging rock that we see before us (but at the quantum level, there may certainly be more to that rock than we currently understand).
The naïve realist will see a rock and not think anymore about it. It exists (at least in this realisation of the multiverse) and is there to be photographed in the landscape. There is certainly more to that rock as a thing-in-itself (or, alternatively, as an imperfect indication of its Platonic form if you prefer), but that is not really of concern, it can be experienced in the landscape and recorded in an image without worrying about any deeper nature.
The emotional response of a viewer to an image of that rock can certainly be conditioned on how it is represented (as in the examples of enhancing the colours of the leaves on it or blurring the water passing by it), but the means of the landscape photographer to influence that representation are certainly far more limited than other artists. The essence of the photographic image is that it remains realistic in some sense by recording the light that arrives from that rock and its surroundings in the landscape. Referring back to the quotation of Garry Winogrand, the fact of that rock is clearly described at the instant that the photograph is taken.
So where is the mystery? I think there are two philosophical aspects to that, ontological and aesthetic. The first is the deeper levels of understanding that might be associated with the nature of that rock. We have only one “fact” of that rock as we experience it (though if we stick around or return several times, the fact might be changing with light and season and it might even have rolled or moved), but there may be other characteristics that are beyond our perception (or that of our cameras). This is an ontological mystery (or potential possibility) for us as individuals. In recognising such possibilities, we need not be naïve realists in approaching the landscape; we can allow that there might be some deeper levels of understanding about the nature of a rock (or any other element of the landscape), even if they might not impact on the taking of an image as a record of our experience.
The second mystery concerns the aesthetic impact of an image. It is a mystery because the responses to an image can be highly personal and might be quite different for the photographer and the viewer(s). It necessarily contains a subjective element for each individual in terms of both beauty and emotional response15. What might be obvious for the photographer or one viewer might not be appreciated by another. There has been a long philosophical debate about the nature of beauty16 and how its appreciation has evolved in different societies (for example, the difference between classical beauty in the ancient world, the Impressionist reaction against the classical concept of beauty, and the quite different concept of wabi-sabi and the beauty of imperfections in Japan17).
The history of contemporary art (as in many other fields, including philosophy) suggests that individuals need to differentiate themselves in some way, but that not all will attract an audience19. However, a photograph of a rock does have a certain intrinsic interest in that it permits the question as to just why the photographer chose to frame that rock at that moment.
It is the aesthetic properties of an image that allows a rock to be more than a rock in quite a different way18. But while there are indeed very many photos of rocks, identifying those that are more than rocks is rather difficult since they all look like rocks. Of course, the concept of “more than” might only be a construct in the mind of the creative artist that need not be shared by the viewer. In creative photography, anything goes …. but anything might not necessarily evoke an emotional response from the viewer or gain an audience. The history of contemporary art (as in many other fields, including philosophy) suggests that individuals need to differentiate themselves in some way, but that not all will attract an audience19. However, a photograph of a rock does have a certain intrinsic interest in that it permits the question as to just why the photographer chose to frame that rock at that moment. It is, at least, more than any old rock in that sense, given value by the very act of what Barthes in Camera Lucida referred to as photography decreeing the “anything whatever” as notable20.
A more recent work of David Hockney is interesting to consider in this context. It is enormous (3m x 5m) and has also been produced by the manipulation of multiple photographic images, including multiple framed iPad drawings of flowers that can be exhibited separately. The image is clearly intended to be “unrealistic”: the flowers are Hockneyesque in their abstraction and it includes two images of the artist himself on either side of the frame, in the same white cap and shoes but sitting in different chairs and wearing different suits. In an interview he comments “This is not an ordinary photograph [which cannot be] the ultimate depiction of reality: you have to look at these through time, unlike an ordinary photograph, which you see all at once.”21 As with the earlier joiner collages, the intention seems to be to break the barriers of the still image (albeit here rather simplistically, if on a grand scale). Landscape photographers have also creatively tried to express the passage of time, of course, through the means of time stacking over a day or through different seasons. Personally, I do not find such constructed images that convincing. The resulting artificiality seems to result in the whole detracting from the sum of its parts.
David Hockney, 25th June, 2022, Looking at the Flowers (Framed)
The view of a pragmatic realist
I suspect that this response on my part is perhaps because of my predilection and fascination with images of water. One of the particularly interesting aspect of Images of water is that they illustrate the potential for photos to be hyper-realistic in showing things in ways that the eye cannot see (see the pictures that follow). Freezing a water flow in time allows the eye to explore the complexity of a flow in ways that are not possible in “real time”. In the same way, we can explore the details of rocks, of mountains, of skies and of forest thickets by taking time for the eye to range across the image22. We can do the same with the Hockney (especially given its size) but somehow that is philosophically different: an exploration of the intentions of the artist rather than any impression of reality. In the landscape photograph we might wonder about the intentionality of the photographer, in choice of composition and execution, but what we generally explore is the semblance of the real. And we can view it with some heightened hyper-real sensibility, both as the image taker and as an image viewer.
We might define such a position as pragmatic realism23. It is an intention to convey the experience of a landscape while accepting that the impression conveyed can only be an approximation to the real;
I would suggest that there is intrinsic value and satisfaction to be gained in this noble approximation to the real. This is, I think, Tim Parkin’s position in his discussion of honesty in landscape images24 and the position of the NPLA in which what is realistic (the “natural”) is effectively defined by what is considered as unacceptable and rejected (as referred to as the “ignoble lies” earlier).
an approximation that necessarily depends on the limitations of our experience in and personal understanding of the real landscape and the technical choices and limitations of the equipment we use. But while we might enhance an image in some way for aesthetic reasons (the particular choice of film, filter or shutter speed; some post-processing of digital files), for the pragmatic realist there needs to be an element of authenticity in representing the experience at the time of capture. I would suggest that there is intrinsic value and satisfaction to be gained in this noble approximation to the real. This is, I think, Tim Parkin’s position in his discussion of honesty in landscape images24 and the position of the NPLA in which what is realistic (the “natural”) is effectively defined by what is considered as unacceptable and rejected (as referred to as the “ignoble lies” earlier).
I am happy to be a pragmatic realist. I find that there is enough fun, challenge, and reward in recording experiences in the form of noble lies without excessive manipulation. This does not preclude, of course, different philosophies, including more creative approaches to photography, such as the example Hockneys shown above. This might be as simple as a choice of film (Kodak Aerochrome, anyone?), or filter (CPL? Graduated Tobacco? 720 nm Infrared?) or some of the more extreme post-processing methods mentioned earlier. Artistically we can allow that anything goes (and need not be “ignoble” in intent) – but with a quite different philosophy of image making. Not better, or worse, but different. So perhaps you do need a philosophy for your photography (or two) after all…..
Quoted in The Man in the Crowd p.157. Patricia Bosworth in Diane Arbus: A Biography also quotes the photographer Lisette Model (1901-1983) as saying “The most mysterious thing is a fact clearly stated” p.187. There may well be earlier statements of the same aphorism.
Chalmers, A. 1989 Is Bhaskar’s realism realistic? Radical Phil. 49, 18–23. (P23).
Despite the arguments to the contrary – see for example most recently Guy Tal’s article https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2022/10/the-straight-handicap/.
See https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2020/06/landscape-and-the-philosophers-of-photography/
Guy Tal in a comment on https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2020/06/landscape-and-the-philosophers-of-photography/
See Guy Tal, https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2018/04/morality-realism-photography/, the response by Tim Parkin at https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2018/07/realism-and-honesty-in-photography/ and the comments that both articles inspired. Also, Guy Tal’s series of philosophical articles: https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2021/12/disinterested-interest/, https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2022/06/transcendent-forms-and-noble-lies/, https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2022/08/existence-precedes-essence/. Also my own https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2019/10/creation-passing-ducks-representation-reality/ .
See https://naturallandscapeawards.com
There is an interesting discussion of the late 19th Century origins of conceptual art in the recent book by Michel Onfrey, Les Anartistes (Editions Albin Michel, 2022), where he recounts the history of a group of artists in France known as Les Incohérents (Jules Levy, Paul Bilhaud, Alphonse Allais, and others including the pseudonymous, Dada) some 20 years or more before Cubism, the Black square of Maleovich, the urinal of Duchamp.and the Dadaists. Alphonse Allais even published a piece of silent music in 1897 (Marche Funèbre composée pour les funéreilles d;un grand homme sourd – Funeral March composed for the funeral of a great deaf man) some 55 years before the famous piece 4’33” of John Cage.
Quoted in the Daily Art Magazine, https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/david-hockney-photographs/, 26th June 2022
Ansel Adams did not generally approve of the use of such longer shutter speeds in the representation of water, but suggested speeds of 1/250 sec or shorter so that some of the structure of the flow could be seen. It is not always evident that he followed his own advice.
See the Guy Tal article https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2022/06/transcendent-forms-and-noble-lies/
For example, Metaphysical realism, Immanent realism, Positivism, Idealism, different varieties of Transcendental realism, Structural realism, Pragmatic realism, and Speculative realism. We should expect nothing less, since even philosophers have to make careers and reputations, so they need to differentiate themselves from what has gone before.
See the recent articles by Guy Tal, https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2022/06/transcendent-forms-and-noble-lies/.
Bertrand Russell illustrates this Kantian concept with the thought experiment if everyone was born with blue coloured spectacles. We would all still see a rock, but the thinking philosopher might recognise that we might not perceive the true essence of that rock.
Though we can now learn how to create mood in our photographs in less than 5 minutes … see https://fstoppers.com/lightroom/how-master-mood-landscape-photography-under-5-minutes-618467
See https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2021/12/disinterested-interest/ and the discussion that follows
It seems that wabi-sabi photography can also be considered as a genre, see https://www.discoverdigitalphotography.com/2016/wabi-sabi-photography-the-art-of-the-imperfect/
From the quotation of Edward Weston: “This then: to photograph a rock, have it look like a rock, but be more than a rock.”. See also Guy Tal’s book More than a Rock, Rocky Nook, 2nd Edition.
What becomes famous might depend on circumstances, analogous to the Black Swans in the financial world, including hedge fund managers, discussed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (see also his book Skin in the Game). Certainly I have friends who are very talented artists but who have not had the success that perhaps they deserve.
See again https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2019/10/creation-passing-ducks-representation-reality/.
See https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/oct/08/david-hockney-new-5-metre-digital-artwork-self-portrait
There are other ways in which photography can be hyper-realist, notably in the macro and microscopic domains, and also in the domain of astrophysics with the Hubble, James Webb and soon to be launched Euclid satellites. The latter will have the largest digital camera ever constructed for a space mission and will be in orbit some 1.5 million km from Earth – see article of 25th September 2022 at https://blog.insolublepancake.org
I have discussed the problems of pragmatic realism in the context of my professional sphere of environmental modelling in the 2002 article in the Proceedings of the Royal Society https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspa.2002.0986 See Tim’s article at https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2018/07/realism-and-honesty-in-photography/
As you can imagine, the imaging setup for professional astrophotography is more involved than a simple point-and-shoot. Ideally, you need a high-end DSLR or mirrorless camera stabilized on a tripod. And, of course, the technical know-how of photography and stargazing. With the equipment ready, astrophotographers decide on a target in the night sky (a galaxy, a nebula, a planet, the moon, or any celestial object). The next step is locating it in the night sky, selecting the right settings for the right conditions, getting a fix on and tracking the target, and finally, taking a shot over a set period. The images are taken in RAW format, letting the astrophotographer composite and edit in post without affecting the quality.
Samsung’s Astrophoto takes most of these complicated steps out of the process, letting sophisticated AI do the heavy lifting. It searches night sky features using the “Sky guide” feature and locks onto them (via Samsung). Plus, with the constellation assist, you get a better idea of what you’re observing.
Once detected, Astrophoto predicts how the objects move, auto-selects the right settings for the scene, takes multiple shots for several minutes and composites them using multi-frame processing. The dozens of frames (taken in RAW format) are then processed, enhanced, and stacked as a single output (via Samsung).
It is mid-morning outside the Pompidou Centre in Paris and Patti Smith is talking to me on the phone – she is trying to puzzle out how best we are to find each other within the labyrinthine building: she is somewhere inside working on an exhibition, a sound and visual montage of three French poets: Arthur Rimbaud, Antonin Artaud and René Daumal.
At 75, she is the figurehead of American punk – her 1975 album, Horses, has often been selected as one of the top 100 albums of all time – and with each year that passes, she becomes more age-defyingly remarkable. She spent much of last year touring and continues to work as a poet and artist – her memoir, Just Kids, about her relationship with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, won the 2010 US national book award.
Having interviewed her on the phone in 2020, I already know she has an extraordinary ability to stay naturally herself (the explanation that she will send an assistant curator to meet me because she has “no sense of direction” is not disingenuous). And now the assistant curator is leading the way up the escalator and into the exhibition space and I see her at once, deep in conversation with Soundwalk curator/director Stéphan Crasneanscki, considering a collage of photographs, her back facing me, talking about the extra space needed to allow her chosen artists to breathe.
8 January ‘As a young girl, I admired the skater’s attire, eventually adopting the look as my own. The plate belonged to my mother who always tried to make me wear bright colours. The skater won out. He dwells beside my copy of Ariel, given to me by Robert Mapplethorpe in 1968.’
Allowing artists to breathe is Smith’s forte – she is never more herself than when celebrating others – and our reason for meeting is A Book of Days, her beautiful new collection of 366 captioned images, one for each day of a leap year. The book includes black-and-white Polaroids from her archive and images from her Instagram account (she has more than 1 million followers) and is, in common with the Pompidou show, a work of creative homage to writers, poets, friends and family. As she turns around, she is all apologies and politesse. She is small for someone with such presence. She has the face of a dreamer – warmth mixed with distance. An unsecured plait, no wider than a shoelace, is starting to unravel in her long grey hair. She wears mannish specs and a mustard-coloured suede shirt thrown over a worn T-shirt – I cannot make out its psychedelic text. Her trousers are black and her neat riding boots decorated with a suggestion of gold spurs. You might read her as distraite but actually I’d say she is concentrated.
We have to take the escalator back down to the Pompidou’s basement to find an empty conference room in which to talk, and we sit side by side on a sofa. She tells me how she first got on to Instagram as a bid against inauthenticity: “My daughter, Jesse, told me that because I wasn’t on Instagram, it was an open field for impostors who were exploiting and soliciting other people in my name and I said: ‘What can I do about it?’” Jesse told her how to open an account, get verification: “‘All you have to do is to choose a picture, then write a little message to the people.’” Since then, she has used Instagram as a force for good and feels she needs it to be “part of society”. She calls her account This is Patti Smith. Her Instagram – and the book – are inclusive, reaching out to readers in a shawl of words: “Birthdays acknowledged are prompts for others, including your own,” she writes.
While A Book of Days is dedicated to others, its cover is of Smith in a dashing, black, wide-brimmed hat carrying a Polaroid 250 Land Camera that now looks quaintly retro with her hand irresolutely over her mouth – reverie second nature to her. Its first image is of her hand raised in greeting. “HELLO EVERYBODY”, she exclaims. Hands appear throughout her books, in and out of dreams. Could we focus on her own? Surprised, she considers them: small, shapely, barely lined. Does she ever look at her hands and think: you’ve been with me through everything? She laughs, surprised: “Gosh, yes, I do think that. I look at them and see my whole life. I realise I’ve not changed all that much. I’m just older, older, older…” She feels particularly in touch with her 11-year-old self, “running through fields with my dog and free of social conformities”.
I ask if she has ever had her palm read and she tells the strangest tale. She was born during a hurricane, in Chicago, in 1946, and raised in Germantown, Philadelphia. Her father was a machinist, her mother a waitress who took in ironing. Her mother had a co-ironing friend, “a big, beautiful black woman I called Aunt Novella”, who one day took her to the zoo: “As we were walking, a Gypsy fortune-teller grabbed my hand, looked at my palm and went: ‘Ssssss…’ She made a sign like a cross, looked very disturbed and sent me away. I asked Aunt Novella: ‘Why did she do that?’ And she replied: ‘She is afraid of you.’ I was only six years old. It made me think: does she think I’m bad? It made me feel very strong – I’ve kept that in myself ever since.”
Smith has needed strength – of which more later. But on the subject of her book: when you look through it, you will find tributes to Murakami, Camus, Kurosawa and Martin Luther King before you have even reached the end of January. And it is intriguingly furnished with photographs of writers’ beds: Virginia Woolf’s with embroidered bedspread (25 Jan), Georgia O’Keeffe’s with a more humble covering (6 March); Frida Kahlo’s with a spooky black skeleton above it (6 July); John Keats’s, which “seems to contain the luminous dust of his consumptive nights” (3 August); and a snap of her own single bed in her house on Rockaway Beach, with a stout pillow (15 March).
I see her as a literary pilgrim, I tell her, and she looks pleased. Butwhat I most want to know is why she is so dedicated to celebrating other artists? She replies simply: “Because they magnify my life.” From childhood onwards, she has wanted to “thank” artists. And this makes our meeting in Paris especially fitting because of her joy at the way the city salutes artists and writers (just think of the street names). And as she continues to love France, the French return the compliment: the ministry of culture made her a commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2005 and, in May this year, she received France’s highest accolade when she was made an officer of the Légion d’honneur. Paris recurs in A Book of Days – as it has throughout her life. A black-and-white snap of a coffee cup from Brasserie Lipp alongside her spectacles (10 March) has the caption: “All I needed in Paris.” There are snaps of the Seine and the English bookshop Shakespeare and Company. When she first came to the city, in 1965, she sang on its streets, an unknown, between La Coupole and Le Dôme, and remembers the actor Leslie Caron passing and slipping 20 francs into the hat. From the first, she was “drawn to French culture in every aspect from Jeanne Moreau to Genet”.
Her love affair with 19th-century French poet Rimbaud has also lasted: “I was 15 when I found a copy of Les Illuminations with Rimbaud’s face looking very Bob Dylanish and thought: that’s the poet.” In 1974, she visited his grave in Charleville and found it “overgrown with cabbages – he’d fallen out of favour”. Today, she not only champions his poetry but finds herself guardian of his house in the Ardennes (22 Oct). Rimbaud’s mother’s family offered it her. “Rimbaud finished A Season in Hell there in 1873.” The house was bombed during the first world war and rebuilt. “It’s very nice now – I’ve cleaned it up, refurbished it, got new sewage. My desire is to make it a poets’ residence for short periods. But the real value of the place is the land itself. This is where Rimbaud lay down at night… looked up at the stars… maybe took a piss… it’s his family land.”
A Book of Days is personally devotional too. It practises (to borrow from the poet Elizabeth Bishop) the art of losing. “By the time I was 46, I’d lost my pianist, Richard Sohl, who died at 37 (26 May), and to whom I was very attached; Robert Mapplethorpe, who died when he was 42 (1 September); my brother Todd (15 June), who died at 42 [he had a stroke while wrapping Christmas presents for his daughters]; and my husband, Fred Sonic Smith [a guitarist with radical band MC5], who died at 45 (14 September).” She recalls their first meeting: “I met Fred in Detroit. There was a party for my band, in the afternoon, in a famous hotdog place: the Lafayette Coney Island. I don’t like parties so much but I had my hotdog and was about to leave and saw this fella standing against a wall and I was struck by him. And that meeting, probably more than any other, changed my life.” One day – she is not ready yet – she will write about him. “He was the love of my life.”
“In a succession of losses,” she continues, “you start to understand the process and yet each loss takes its individual toll. All loss is something we know we’re going to suffer and then life moves along… things seem OK… then, one day, you’re walking down the street and the pain of a loss that happened years earlier will come back at full capacity.” When ambushed by grief, she tries to “ride it out. Sometimes, it can be so intense, you have to train yourself not to be enveloped by it. You don’t want to fall into the abyss.”
Abyss-dodging means developing a sustaining routine. And she explains that her cat plays a leading role in her New York life. Cairo is a 21-year-old Abyssinian with an uncompromisingly feline stare pictured atop a book of Lorca’s, calling a halt to any possibility of reading on (5 June 2018). “I get up early and feed her. I give her water. And I drink hot water with lemon. Then I go nearby and have a coffee and take my notebook and a book. I like to make the morning my writing time but if I can’t write, I’ll read and often the reading will inspire me.” Cups of coffee in her books become almost talismanic, as do preferred foods: fresh rolls, anchovies packed in salt, fresh mint – all key ingredients. Her routine began when she had her son, Jackson, in 1982: “Having a child… you are no longer the centre of your universe,” she laughs. She has a wonderful, radiant, crooked smile and, when it comes, laughter like a sudden thaw. At the same time, I note that the laughter is seldom mischievous, somehow serious. As a writer, she volunteers, she spends most of her time alone.
26 July ‘Sam [Shepard]’s Adirondack chairs in Kentucky. We would drink our coffee, talk about writing, or just watch the sun go down in comfortable silence.’
She must sometimes get lonely? She does, she says. But more often, she gets restless. As a person, and a writer, she travels light. A picture of her old travelling boots bears the caption: “Time to get moving” (6 September). I imagine her recent tour must have been exhausting? “It did take it out of me. This year has been tough, trying to make up obligations cancelled in 2020 and 2021.” Next year, she plans to focus more on writing and a new recording: “I’m going to simplify my life.”
Simplifying might prove a challenge. She describes herself as a “messy minimalist” and confesses books overwhelm her New York home (only a literary burglar would know what to steal). Her beach house, her “Alamo”, is “a respite from clutter” – an elegantly spartan shack that survived a hurricane and is filled with gifts: an Italian desk from Johnny Depp, a Brancusi self-portrait from Michael Stipe and Giuseppe Verdi’s calling card – a gift from her daughter. Her entry for 28 January reads: “Keep on going, no matter what, my talismans seem to whisper.” And she writes often about the pain of losing things. In her memoir M Train, she entreats her objects: “Please stay for ever.” And now she singles out some mysterious losses: a heart-shaped necklace made for her by Mapplethorpe, a book about Paris and Vienna with her mother’s maiden name inside, and recalls how her husband gave her “a little silver bar. I always put it – we were parted a lot – under my pillow, wherever I was. One day, I forgot to retrieve it… it wasn’t valuable but he had given it to me.”
There is something of that silver bar about Patti Smith – a shining resistance, a knowing of her own mind but tempered with kindness. She is, one suspects, not unlike her mother, whom she recalls with staunchest affection. “My mother was very down to earth – with a good strong sense of self. She loved performing and had a beautiful, clear singing voice. She came to my concerts until she was 80 years old.” She was “thrilled” by her daughter’s success. “My parents had no prejudices. I was brought up in a completely open way in terms of religion, race, gender… The only criterion was you had to be a nice person.”
Her upbringing fortified her and, perhaps, her unworldliness too: Smith might have been at home in another century. She does not know how to drive and nor, in spite of her love of the ocean, to swim. In Just Kids, she writes about how, unlike many of her generation, she always avoided drugs: “I was a sickly child: I was born with bronchial pneumonia, I had tuberculosis, scarlet fever… my mother spent a lot of time helping to keep me alive – and, by 20, I’d gone through a lot physically. I never considered I’d have a long life because I’d battled so many illnesses and decided I was not going to throw my life away.”
Coming to the Chelsea hotel, aged 22, she found it filled with people “already damaged by drugs”. And there was another reason to resist: “I like my mind. I have an intense imagination. I like to be in control of my own state.” But there must have been pressure to join in? “I’m not one to succumb to peer pressure,” she replies.
Given that Smith’s work is about affinities, it is no surprise many fans think of her as a friend. Does she ever pine for anonymity? “Yesterday, I was in the museum walking around and so many young girls were just saying hello, taking my hand, speaking to me. To feel love from young people is a wonderful thing.” She feels “anonymous and loved” in Paris. She adds: “I try to encourage people who feel I’ve been important to them. If somebody says, you changed my life, I’ll say, I hope for the better, but you’re going to keep going. I thank them and try to remind them that I’m just a stepping stone to themselves.”
Rereading Just Kids, the sense is that her own life unfolded with serendipitous effortlessness: Mapplethorpe rescued her from an unwelcome date. The poet Allen Ginsberg was randomly encountered in a launderette; she walked out with the playwright Sam Shepard with no notion of who he was. She even appeared to become a rock star by accident. Does she believe in fate? She replies that, when younger, she saw life as a “huge prayer rug where the threads make a beautiful design but with intentional flaws”. She is still drawn to the “grand design” even if the carpet is a comforting fiction.
22 October ‘Chuffilly-Roche. The Rimbaud family compound was bombed in World War I, then rebuilt from the rubble. The house sits on the same land where they harvested corn and the poet wrestled with A Season in Hell. The plaque attached to the stone façade reads: At this place Rimbaud hoped, despaired and suffered.’
She also believes in free will. “I believe in everything simultaneously. I don’t have a religion and don’t need one.” Like most of us, she worries about the world. “Today, I woke at four in the morning out of a sound sleep, thinking of the women of Iran and of my daughter… my mind all over the place. I keep waking through the night. Part of me is always conscious of what is happening in Ukraine, the threat of nuclear weapons, the climate crisis, a part of Florida destroyed.” I look at her face – tired, I see that now: “All these things radiate from my mind and I can’t… we’re powerless to take care of everything but I try to keep these people in my consciousness just as I keep the dead in my consciousness. My father, my mother – I think of them. I can’t help all the women in Yemen watching their babies die of starvation. I can only radiate love toward them. I have to, as an individual, continue to do my work. I have to find a way to balance our troubled world with my own optimism, joy and obligations. So it is always on my mind and it’s complicated.”
Work is essential to her: “When people ask whether I’d like to be called a singer, songwriter, artist or poet, I say: if you call me a worker, you’ll encompass everything I do.” Does she think about her own mortality? “I’ve always been a youthful person. I never thought about death until I turned 70. I wouldn’t think about it if I didn’t have children. But they lost their father so young. And my relationship with my children is so strong [Jesse and Jackson are musicians and recently accompanied their mother on tour], I hate the idea of leaving them.” But her emphasis is always on life: “I just keep doing my work, try to take care of myself. I feel blessed to have the imagination I have but don’t think it makes me more important than anyone. I am who I am, with all my flaws – and I’m grateful.” And with the same courteous attention she has brought to our conversation, she now explains she must change for the photographer – all she needs is her black jacket, she says, and she will be ready.
A Book of Days by Patti Smith is published by Bloomsbury (£25). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
Ricoh Imaging Americas Corporation recently announced the PENTAX KF digital SLR camera. This compact, dust-proof and weather-resistant DSLR camera, optimized for all types of outdoor photography, provides a host of advanced, user-friendly features including a bright optical viewfinder, one of the benefits of DSLR shooting.
The PENTAX KF is designed to provide outstanding imaging performance in a rugged, highly portable body. It provides dependable, cold-proof performance down to temperatures as low as 14°F (-10°C), performing superbly in a wide range of weather conditions. While considered a mid-range model, the new camera incorporates an array of advanced functions and user-friendly features usually found only in higher-end models including a pentaprism-type optical viewfinder with a nearly 100% field of view and an in-body shake-reduction system with a 4.5-shutter-step compensation. It also provides the double e-dial system identical with top-of-the-line PENTAX models, as well as PENTAX-original shooting features, such as the Hyper Program system, which allows the user to instantly switch the exposure mode from Program to Aperture-priority or Shutter-priority without taking his or her eye off the viewfinder.
Main features of the PENTAX KF
1. Super-high-resolution with approximately 24.24 effective megapixels, even at ISO 102400
A state-of-the-art CMOS image sensor with approximately 24.24 effective megapixels and high-speed 14-bit image data readout, combined with an AA-filter-free optical design, enables the PENTAX KF to deliver super-high-resolution images. The camera couples a high-performance accelerator unit with the high-speed PRIME MII imaging engine, effectively minimizing noise at all sensitivity levels and capturing richly gradated, fine-detailed images even at its top sensitivity of ISO 102400.
2. Dust-proof, weather-resistant body perfect for rugged outdoor photography
The PENTAX KF is a dependable performer even in such demanding settings as in the rain or at locations prone to dust and freezing temperatures. Its compact, easy-to-carry body features dust-proof, weather-resistant construction with 100 seals throughout the body and outstanding cold-proof performance at temperatures down to 14°F (-10°C). To make it easy to ensure a firm hold on the camera body with a gloved hand, the grip, control buttons on the back panel and mode dials have all been designed and contoured for optimum operability, ideal for active outdoor shooting — such as when mountain climbing or hiking or capturing sporting events. The brightness level of the PENTAX KF’s outdoor-friendly LCD monitor can be quickly adjusted to the lighting level of a shooting location. The camera also features a red-lighted monitor display function, which facilitates viewing in dark locations for astrophotography.
3. Clear-view optical viewfinder
Within its compact body, the PENTAX KF incorporates a glass prism finder featuring the same optics and coatings as those used in higher-level models. With its approximately 100% field of view and nearly 0.95-times magnification, the PENTAX KF’s viewfinder provides a large, clear view of the subject for quick, easy confirmation of focusing and framing.
4. Vari-angle LCD monitor for easy viewing from all angles
The PENTAX KF’s vari-angle LCD monitor allows the monitor to be positioned at the desired angle, making it easier to compose images in a wide variety of situations: high-angle shooting using outstretched arms, low-angle shots taken from ground level or astrophotography with the camera pointed upwards toward a star-filled sky. It also features unique, air-gapless construction, in which the air space between the high-definition LCD panel (with approximately 1,037,000 dots) and the protective cover has been filled with a special resin material to effectively reduce the reflection and dispersion of light for improved visibility during outdoor shooting.
5. PENTAX-original shake-reduction system with Pixel Shift Resolution System
(1) In-body SR mechanism
Using the built-in PENTAX-original SR (Shake Reduction) mechanism, the PENTAX KF effectively minimizes camera shake and delivers sharp, blur-free images, even in challenging, shake-prone conditions such as when using a telephoto lens, shooting low-light scenes with ambient light only, or photographing sunset scenes. Using a high-accuracy gyro sensor, it provides a compensation effect of 4.5 shutter steps, similar to top-of-the-line PENTAX models.
With a panning shot, the sensor mechanism automatically detects the direction of the camera’s movement and controls the SR unit to produce the best image possible.
(2) Pixel Shift Resolution System with motion correction function
The PENTAX KF features the Pixel Shift Resolution System,* which captures four images of the same scene by shifting the image sensor by a single pixel for each image, and then synthesizes them into a single, composite image. Compared to the conventional Bayer system, in which each pixel has only a single color data unit, this innovative system obtains all color data in each pixel to deliver super-high-resolution images with greater color accuracy and much finer details than those produced by conventional APS-C-size image sensors. This system even provides a motion correction function, which automatically detects a moving object during continuous shooting and minimizes negative effects during the synthesizing process in order to accommodate a wider range of scenes and subjects.
(3) Innovative AA filter simulator to minimize moiré
By applying microscopic vibrations to the image sensor unit at the sub-pixel level during image exposure, the PENTAX KF’s AA (anti-aliasing) filter simulator provides the same level of moiré reduction as an optical AA filter. Unlike an optical AA filter, which always creates the identical result, this innovative simulator lets the user switch the AA filter effect on and off, as well as to adjust the level of the effect. This means that the ideal effect can be set for a particular scene or subject based on the current photographic conditions.
(4) Additional special shooting functions
Since the PENTAX KF’s image sensor unit is designed to tilt in all directions, it provides a host of additional, special shooting functions, including ASTROTRACER, which simplifies advanced astronomical photography in combination with the optional O-GPS2 GPS Unit; and Auto Horizon Correction and Extra Sharpness functions.
6. Hybrid AF system for high-speed AF operation during Live View shooting
The PENTAX KF employs the Hybrid AF system during Live View autofocus operation. By positioning a contrast-detection AF sensor with superior focusing accuracy and a phase-matching AF sensor on the image sensor’s surface, this innovative hybrid system optimizes the benefits of both AF systems to assure high-speed, pinpoint AF focusing on the subject.
7. High-precision autofocus system with the SAFOX X module
The PENTAX KF features the high-precision SAFOX X AF sensor module, which assures responsive, dependable autofocus operation. With its 11 sensors including nine cross-type sensors in the middle, this AF module assures pinpoint focus on the subject at a minimum brightness level as low as -3 EV. It also assures outstanding AF tracking performance with moving subjects, enabled by advanced features such as the Select-area Expansion function, which automatically refocuses on a moving subject after it moves away from the initial point, with the help of the neighboring points; and an AF Hold function that maintains the initial in-focus point even when the module loses sight of the subject.
8. An array of image processing functions for diversified photographic expression
The PENTAX KF provides the PENTAX-developed Custom Image function, which lets the user process an image with the desired finishing touch to express the creative intention, or to suit the particular scene. This function provides 14 Custom Image modes, including: SATOBI, which reproduces the colors to resemble those of pictures in the 60s and 70s, with cyan-tinged blues, subdued yellows and faded reds; Bleach Bypass, which recreates the distinctive, high-contrast look of movie film; and Cross Processing, which adds fantastic, unusual colors to captured images. In combination with PENTAX Limited-series lenses, which are popular for their distinctive image renditions, the PENTAX KF also provides special-edition Custom Image modes KYUSHU and KATEN.
9. A host of interval shooting functions
The PENTAX KF provides a host of advanced interval shooting functions, including: 4K-resolution Interval Movie, which allows recording a series of still images at a fixed interval and then linking them together into a single 4K-resolution movie file; Star Stream Movie, which enables recording the traces of stars or illuminations on a 4K-resolution movie file; and Interval Composite, which synthesizes a composite image with a choice of three synthesis modes (average, additive and comparative).
10. Wireless LAN connection to support smartphone operation
The PENTAX KF provides a host of wireless LAN (Wi-Fi) functions to support operations using smartphones and tablet computers. By installing the dedicated Image Sync application on a smartphone or tablet, the user can remotely check the Live View image, capture still images, and adjust such camera settings as aperture, shutter speed and ISO sensitivity to the desired level through the mobile device. It is even possible to download captured images onto a mobile device for easy uploading onto social networking service websites.
11. Other features
77-segment multi-pattern metering system for high-precision light metering
DR (Dust Removal) mechanism to remove dust from the surface of the CMOS image sensor
High-speed shutter unit with a top speed of 1/6000 second, and high-speed continuous shooting function at a top speed of approximately six images per second
Self-timer function, compatible with the continuous shooting function
Pricing and availability
The PENTAX KF DSLR will be available starting in late November 2022 at www.us.ricoh-imaging.com as well as at Ricoh Imaging-authorized retail outlets. The PENTAX KF black camera body only has a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $849.95; the PENTAX KF black camera body with SMC PENTAX DA L 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 AL WR lens Kit has a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $949.95.
In addition to the standard black body camera, two special-edition color models — crystal blue and crystal white — will be available worldwide in a limited quantity of 700 units each. These will be available in late November only at www.us.ricoh-imaging.com for the manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $899.95.
Omaha doesn’t give photographer Isaiah “Frosty” Niemann access to the oceans where he captures dramatic images of huge waves and the surfers who ride them. So when he’s here, he takes wedding photos or family portraits.
But when clients hire him to photograph and film them surfing on big waves, he travels to popular surfing sites around the world.
Niemann was stationed in California and Hawaii during his time in the Marines.
FROSTY PHOTO
Niemann, 27, was born in Seward and grew up in South Carolina — away from the coast.
“I didn’t really grow up in the ocean environment,” he said.
Photography came first.
Niemann bought a digital camera at a Best Buy to document his time in the Marines.
Then came surfing. He was stationed at Camp Pendleton in California for five years.
“The thing that got me with surfing is the peacefulness of being disconnected from society,” he said. “When you’re out surfing, you’re by yourself. It’s all about you and the ocean. You’re not competing with anything else. You’re just enjoying the ride.”
Ian Walsh surfs at the Pipeline on the north shore of Oahu.
FROSTY PHOTO
In his free time, Niemann started working as an intern at a surf shop, learning how to make boards.
His hobbies crossed paths when a friend asked Niemann to take photos of him surfing.
It snowballed from there, with more friends asking for photo shoots. It morphed into a side business.
He was later stationed in Hawaii. By then, he was an avid surfer, going out almost daily. He bought waterproof housings for his camera and took it out swimming to take photos on the water.
In many places, Niemann had to swim to take photos because watercraft aren’t allowed. When he can use watercraft, he goes with a Jet Ski.
A rainbow over a wave at Banzai Pipeline in Oahu, Hawaii. Niemann combined his passion for photography with his love of surfing.
FROSTY PHOTO photos
Niemann got serious about big surf photography about a year ago in Hawaii after he started swimming a stretch of coast known for big waves called the Pipeline on the north shore of Oahu.
On a whim, he decided to visit a big wave surf break known as Jaws off Maui’s north shore. It’s known for producing some of the biggest waves in the world.
Big wave surfing is done on waves that range from 20 to 80 feet high. Typical surfing is done on waves that range between 2 and 6 feet, Niemann said.
“It’s kind of like grabbing an electric fence,” he said. “You’re holding on for dear life, but trying to enjoy the excitement of it.”
Niemann surfs big waves, too. Because it can be dangerous, he has undergone lifeguard training and big wave rescue certification.
Omaha photographer Isaiah “Frosty” Niemann, an avid surfer, also has caught more than his share of waves with a camera. This photo shows Paige Alms off Maui’s north shore. In January, he’s heading to Ireland to film a surfer from the United Kingdom.
FROSTY PHOTO
Being on the water is a major adrenaline rush, he said.
“You get to see the power of the ocean firsthand and see that you’re just a small piece. It can be very dangerous and beautiful at the same time,” Niemann said.
Niemann traveled back to Omaha from Hawaii with his then-fiancée, Dana, for their spring wedding. He ended his military service earlier this year, and the couple moved back to Omaha, where Dana’s family lives.
Frosty Photo has become Niemann’s full-time job. Dana Niemann works for the business, too, taking care of all of the logistics and travel arrangements.
Isaiah Niemann photographed a barrel wave at Pyramid Rock in Hawaii. Niemann, who lives in Omaha, photographs big wave surfing.
FROSTY PHOTO
The “Frosty” moniker is a childhood nickname. As a kid, he would stockpile Wendy’s Frosty coupon books so he could eat as many of the frozen treats for free as he could.
In January, he’s heading to Ireland for three months to film a 12-part series for a surfer from the United Kingdom.
“I would say the best thing about photography is being able to share my experiences and these magical moments with the ocean with other people,” Niemann said.
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Justine Bassen of Lincoln directs signs toward passing motorists during the Lincoln Women’s March on Saturday.
