Opinion

I’m way too polite and well-mannered to come right out and say that photographers lie, so instead I’ll repeat some of the things I’ve heard them say and translate their words into language we can all understand, i.e., the truth. For example, when my friend told me, “Very useful blog this week, Jon!” she really meant, “You couldn’t write your way out of a paper bag, you schlub, but I ran out of Nyquil and I had to get to sleep somehow…”

When a photographer deals with the emotions generated by black-and-white prints, and the methodology of creating and defining those emotions and how they are generated, he or she begins to deal with developing a sense of the aesthetics of the monochrome image.

The reaction to a human face is inherently stronger than to any inanimate object or arrangement. The expression, body language, placement and lighting often overcome the processing and/or printing technique, or at the least dictate much of the approach.

I got a lot of feedback – mostly positive but with a few spirited rejoiners – to last month’s editorial “Smartphones (Still) Can’t Compete with Great Camera Gear,” that I feel I should “double down.” Again, this isn’t a knock against using smartphones for shooting images. As I mentioned last month, I do it all the time with some pretty decent results. And many serious photographers are constantly turning to that little phone in their pockets and have produced many spectacular photos.

We rarely use this space for opinion pieces, but Google’s new Clips camera really bugs me and I’m going to rant a bit, so please bear with me. Billed as “A new way to capture big moments and little ones,” Clips works in tandem with the Google Pixel 2 smartphone (as well as with Samsung’s S7/S8 and the iPhone 6 and up) to let you “shoot and share like never before.”

Why would anyone in their right mind want to use old lenses on their shiny new high-performance DSLR or mirrorless camera? The simple answer is that some older lenses can capture images that have that elusive quality known as character. 

It's an eternal debate amongst photographers: do you prefer shooting with prime lenses or zoom lenses? Of course, it's completely subjective to say which one is better but it's always fun to discuss.