IT’S NOT THE SHOES
By MICHAEL PERKINS
I WAS RECENTLY READING AN ARTICLE that centered not so much on the unique talent of legendary photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson as on the succession of early 35mm Leica’s that were his go-to tools. In the writer’s defense, I believe he was at least trying to make the case that HCB’s kit merely facilitated his own wonderful vision, assisting but not making his greatest images. However, a reader that already regards certain cameras with the zeal of a cult worshiper could easily come away with the opposite view, that those Leicas were, themselves, a determinative force in how his pictures came out. And that’s unfortunate.
People who sell consumer goods tap into the human habit of crediting things for what might be achieved by intelligent use of those things. Eat this breakfast cereal and break the four-minute mile. Ride around your neighborhood on the tires that won the Indy 500. The pitch even works in reverse psychology, as in Spike Lee’s brilliant ’80’s ads for Nike, in which he kept asking various basketball superstars, “it’s the shoes, isn’t it?” The payoff was, of course, a knowing wink to the consumer, i.e., “well, no, it’s not really the shoes, hee hee, but, P.S., Jordan wears ’em, so…” And, for shooters, the equivalent pitch: buy this camera/lens/attachment/app and become a great photographer. It’s an easy approach for advertisers, because it appeals to our own bias about what creates excellence, which, in many cases, the advertisers have “taught” us to believe in the first place.
Cartier-Bresson, whose sense of composition was said to be so keen that he was known to merely raise the camera to his eye and click in one unbroken motion, developed that economical sense of execution on his own, irrespective of what gear he was using. He employed the simplest, most streamlined approach to making pictures that he could, and, as a matter of historic accident, the early Leica’s, themselves very no-frills affairs, gave him all the machine he needed to get the job done, and nothing more. Other manufacturers could likely have served the same elemental function for him, but, as fate would have it, Leica got there first, and so became an inextricable part of his legend, a lazy kind of “oh, that’s how he did it” explanation for a genius that simply cannot be explained.
One wonders how long the camera industry could thrive if manufacturers could not (a) make us discontented with what we already have, and (b) convince us that the next toy we buy will make us a Cartier-Bresson. But the real “camera” in photography is the one positioned behind our eyes. Knowing where to hit the nail-head is more important than merely buying a premium hammer. It really, honestly, swear to God, is not the shoes.
REALITY ON DEMAND
By MICHAEL PERKINS
ANY TIME I HEAR SOMEONE WAXING NOSTALGIC for the “good old analog days” I am tempted to check their forehead for sign of a fever. Certainly there are elements of the film experience that, decades after the dawning of the digital revolution, I can still look back on with a smile, there are just as many aspects of working in that medium that fall into the “good riddance” category…clumsy, burdensome steps that put ungainly obstacles between envisioning a shot and being able to execute it expeditiously. Strangely, initial reaction to the technical simplification of the making of an image has often been negative, even vehement. For example, many of we elders can still recall the hue and cry that issued from the ranks of the purists when auto-focus was introduced, with direct predictions that true photography was now dead, etc., etc.. blah, blah, blah.
And you can go on down the line, from the math whiz meanderings of light meters to automatic film advance, to, well, make your own list. Near the top of my own “thank God that’s over” roster is the calculation of white balance, which used to require a lot of back-of-the-envelope figuring and is now, like so many other fine functions, an on-demand dial-up. Clicks. I certainly am not downplaying the vital aspect of the right color temperature for the right shot, and, indeed, formal portraitists and studio shooters still have a more essential need for pinpoint precision in this area. But for many more of us, WB is an elective choice made in a moment and largely on a whim, as in the two sunset exposures seen here, taken barely a minute apart from each other. These images are one intentionality level up from straight snapshots, and yet, I can produce drastically different results in an on-the-fly shooting situation where the ambient light is changing rapidly and speed and ease are key.
Cameras are now loaded with many more control options than many of us will need in a lifetime of use, like the now-standard menus of emulations designed to re-create the look of dozens of different classic film emulsions, or custom settings for diffraction compensation. Many of these functions were once, like white balance, slow and tricky to achieve. Now they are a click away. And with the departure of all that bother, another barrier between thinking of a shot and getting it has been eliminated. The purists can, of course, make things harder for themselves out of some affection for “authenticity”. Me, I want to get to the making the picture. Immediately, if not sooner.
LXXIV, OR THEREABOUTS
Through his nightmare vision
He sees nothing, only well
Blind with the beggar’s mind
He’s but a stranger, he’s but a stranger to himself—Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi
By MICHAEL PERKINS
I’VE SCRIBBLED MUCH IN THESE PAGES OVER THE YEARS about the challenge of doing something photographers both big and small do zillions of times per day, with widely varied results; attempt a self-portrait that actually tells the truth.
Knowing the kind of entertaining liar I can be at times, I always mistrust my results, as, when it comes to self-knowledge, I may be the ultimate “unreliable narrator” available for making an image of myself that is honest. Not that I haven’t tried. As decades of birthdays have come and gone, I’ve posed myself in both formal and casual settings, in search of some elusive quality of…. authenticity?……only to wind up feeling like, oh, hell, I’ll get it right next year…..
This time out, this February 8th, I saw the task differently, as I have just spent several months trying to regroup from a series of nerve injuries which included my forearms, a condition that made simple tasks like opening a pickle jar seem herculean. The temporary loss of strength and fine motor function in my fingers was especially depressing, since it wrecked havoc with my ability to operate a camera with any real degree of control. Suddenly, my artist father’s old teachings about hand-eye coordination came back to me in heartbreaking echoes. What if that linkage between what I could see and what I could execute were to remain forever severed?
And so, with mere days to spare before turning seventy-four, for me to actually get 99% of that back….well, it certainly clarified the terms of any birthday selfie I might normally have planned. No big costume changes, no symbolic props, just a simple document that my eye and my hand were back on speaking terms. No other kind of image seemed to make sense; I was crawling out of a hole in which normally conjoined parts of me were not connecting, and there could be no other visual depiction of that reconciliation than documenting the re-establishment of that link. Life, like photography, is often a game of inches, with all of us struggling to have our grasp exceed our reach, and when your fingers occasionally close around those goals, you’ve snatched the greatest treasure in life.
SLOW YOUR (CAMERA) ROLL
By MICHAEL PERKINS
WE’VE MUSED OFTEN, IN THESE PAGES, on the difference between what I call snapshot mentality and photographic mentality. The first occurs when our minds are in “the moment of the moment”; quick, instinctual reaction. The second speaks to a more contemplative approach to making pictures, something that requires intention, planning, and a number of creative choices. The omnipresent tsunami of gazillions of images generated by the convenience of the mobile camera favors snapshot mentality, while older tech, film for example, bends toward photographic mentality. One approach urges that we do things in a hurry, sorting out the chaff later (if ever), while the other dictates that we slow down and focus.
Several disciplines within photography actually seem to be trying to make photographic mentality a priority. The recent explosion of new medium format cameras, for example, emphasizes careful design of an image rather than quick takes. The retro fascination with film, especially with technically limited toy cameras that are prone to error and failure, also forces the user to stop and think before shooting, if for no other reason than sheer economy (mistakes that don’t matter in digital are costly and time-consuming in analog). Another key demarcation is the decision to shoot on either manual or full auto. which also imposes its own unique methods. And then there are the spiritual or mystical approaches that enter into every creative process, demanding that all shooting decisions promote patience and deliberation, a kind of zen hive mind. It’s like the old predictive primer Megatrends, in which the author argued that, like a pendulum, mankind swings between the poles of high tech and high touch. Once high tech begins to overload our senses with speed or convenience for their own sake, the human need for high tech…..a direct, tactile, and yes, slower engagement with the world, becomes needful as a corrective.
We all do a percentage of our work in both snapshot and photographic mentalities. Neither approach is sufficient for every situation. But there is a lot to be said for stopping, waiting, and evaluating what we are doing on the most complete terms possible in the moment. Photographs never suffer from too much advance planning, after all. And while we all admire the sentiment that we must “stop and smell the roses”, the very first step is to notice that there are roses in the first place.
TOGGLING BETWEEN TRUTHS
By MICHAEL PERKINS
If you can’t do it right, do it in color.——-Ansel Adams
THE MAN MANY REGARD AS THE JEDI MASTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY could be said to have had a sizable blind spot when it came to his preference for monochrome over the course of his long career. Part of his distrust of color came from the fact that black and white afforded him a degree of fine technical control that emerging color systems of his time could not yet rival. Another part of his bias stemmed from the fact that he accepted that mono was a departure from reality, a separate realness that he could manipulate and interpret. In his time, color was closer to mere recording; garish, obvious, and, for him, the opposite of art.
By contrast, the world we live in has been dominated by color images for so long that we can easily develop our own prejudice regarding its opposite….that is, to see monochrome as less than, as if, by choosing not to use color, we are somehow shortchanging our art, performing with one hand tied behind our backs, doing more with less. Of course, black and white photography is in no immediate danger of dying out, proving that it has a distinct and definable purpose as a storytelling medium. Further, mono can, in fact, engender its own counter-snobbery, as if certain kinds of work are more “authentic” because we purposely limit our tonal palette, like writing a minimalist melody. Both views, when taken to extremes, can cause creative paralysis, since there is no way to prove or disprove either argument’s rightness or wrongness. There is only the pictures.
Mono image taken as one of three rapidly snapped frames, each one using a different pre-assigned preset in real time.
Over the past few years, I, like many, have tried to provide myself with several choices when capturing an image in real time. With a number of different film emulations pre-assigned to my camera, it’s easy to erase risk by just clicking from one such custom setting after another, taking the same scene in, for example, a faux Fuji transparency style, a simulated Kodachrome look-alike, and a custom monochrome profile reminiscent of classic Tri-X film. I don’t always elect to do this much coverage on a shot, but there are times when I worry about whether I’m making the right decision in the moment, and so I find the extra coverage reassuring, as if I’m improving the odds that something will work out. There is plenty of room in the photographic world to accommodate more than one kind of visual “truth”, and the most creative of us must be willing to toggle between them with flexibility and ease.
RETURN TRIP
By MICHAEL PERKINS
“HEY!!!”
A very young, high and urgent voice from nowhere in particular.
“COME BACK HERE!!!”
Who come back where? Oh, wait, the sound seems to be coming from straight ahead, but I can’t see…
Oh, there’s something….
A small blur with a blue tail on it streaking off to left, followed, an instant later, by a small boy, emerging from the front entrance of a coffee bar that occupies the corner parcel of a retrofitted apartment building in downtown Ventura, California. The blur is, in fact, his dog, and the blue tail is his leash, and boy, is he bulleting out of the joint, heading down the street at Tireless Puppy Speed, pursued by his young master. Me, I’m shooting architecture in the neighborhood at the moment, which is why I find myself directly opposite the java joint, armed with a camera, but too slow to actually catch Fido’s escape. However, I have faith that I will soon get another bite at the apple.
And so I do, as Young Master catches up with the little one within half a block and proceeds to march him back to the coffee shop entrance, giving me a chance to squeeze off a series of shots of the two framed against the incredible blue of the SoCal sky and the lumpy off-white of the long adobe building. It’s a great time of day for long shadows, as witness the shade cast by the wall-mounted sign, but I wait to get the boy clear of that to keep the shot simple; just two small figures against the broad, empty canvas of the building. Young Master is moving at a fairly slow space, giving me the luxury of planning a bit. Frame number three is the one. I have been largely taking pot luck with the other shots of the morning, but this one opportunity redeems all the meh results from the session. That’s the way street work happens; on its own terms, with little notice and just a quick clue that something worth having might be on the way.
Like Tireless Puppy, you just need to sense when a door is opening, and be ready to run.
ALL OR NEARLY ALL
By MICHAEL PERKINS
A COMMON MISTAKE AMONG CAMERA-TOTING NEWBIE BIRDWATCHERS (a very distinct subset among photographers at large) is to regard their outings as either Successes or Failures, as if they were hunting for deer, or trying to land a ten-pound bass. That is, either I ‘came back with something’, or the morning was a waste of time. Of course, it’s disappointing when either no birds show, or the ones that do show can’t be persuaded to jump into your camera. I have even heard some photogs say that, unless they actually managed to capture an image of a particular breed or species, it doesn’t, for them, really exist. Such people are bound not only to be horribly bad birders; they are also likely to be failed photographers.
To be out in the world in search of a particular thing is to deliberately narrow your concept of what’s “worth shooting”, and it’s counter-productive to why you should be out in the first place; to develop and exercise your eye. Certainly, there will be days when the winged ones seem to be deliberately thwarting you, but who said that they must be the only thing you train your camera on while you’re out anyway? In short, if the birds ain’t happening, what else is? If you’re not trying to answer that question, then your shooting experience will be pass/fail, completely binary. It’s as if you went to a state fair and said you were only going to shoot the hot dog stands. Using that logic, a quartet of naked aerialists juggling flaming chainsaws might pass by you while you held out for a shot of a wiener on a stick. Short-sighted?
Some of the things that redeem many of my birding outings have nothing to do with what I couldn’t find and everything to do with what else was available in the moment. Birdwatching is really about observation, and so, being already in that state of mind, why wouldn’t you also be equally fascinated with whatever else comes to hand? Yesterday I shot over 100 frames, most of them failed attempts at capturing winged subjects that were just having none of it. As birding is usually communal, this left me with a lot of time to fill, since the others in my pack were having better luck or were simply more skilled. As they scored on the feathered column of their scorecards, I shot environmental impressions of a pond we were scouting. It wasn’t what I came for, but I was glad I didn’t write off the entire morning as a “miss”. Photographers obviously stumble upon many naturally amazing scenes that are, if you will, “ready-to-eat”, but remaining open to the less obvious is even more important than a quick win. That’s where your growth comes from. A bird in the hand….
GO-TO / COME-BACK-TO
By MICHAEL PERKINS
THE URGE TO DO MORE WITH LESS, to make better and images with a smaller central amount of kit to carry around (or invest in), probably hits every photographer at least once in his/her life. It’s great fun to add to one’s arsenal of weapons/toys in the pursuit of being able to shoot anything under any circumstances, but it’s also very freeing once you decide on the absolute minimal amount of gear that it takes to do nearly the same thing. I’ve gone through any number of “return to basics” phases over a lifetime, always looking for that one set-up that’ll keep me from over-complicating the elemental principles for making decent pictures, which are, let’s face it, pretty simple.
This all leads to the search for the so-called “go-to” lens, an ongoing vision quest for me, and, I suspect, for many of you. But there is another, slightly different comfort category, which I call the “come-back-to” lens, a piece of glass that may, at one time, have served as a go-to, and now has earned the right to occasionally return to the front of the pack, like a one-off date with an old flame. A true come-back-to may not be a universal solution to all shooting situations, but it likely will have been proven in battle in some manner at an earlier time, and thus deserves to be deployed again in a similar situation. This goes a lot to the issue of familiarity, of ease of operation, of not having to think too excessively about how to get the pictures you want. The come-back-to is, in essence, a return to comfort. It’s not a box of chocolates: you know what you’re going to get.
So, an example: when I want to set up my camera to handle the shifting mix of light, exposure challenges and color rendition in the tricky environment of, say, a museum, I go digging for one of the oldest optics I have, a 1970’s-era Nikon 24mm f/2.8 manual lens that I’ve used, off-and-on, for about fifteen years. I set my Nikon Z5 on full manual, pre-selecting a medium focal length like f/4, and tell the camera to allow auto ISO to make any necessary tweaks on my sensor up to 3200. At that point, I’m working almost literally with a point-and-shoot, a level of ease that allows me to react to a rapidly changing series of environments without slowing down to fiddle. It’s not strictly logical, but then the advantage of a come-back-to is mostly emotional. I feel as if I’m going to get good results, which is half the battle. A ” go-to” is a lens that can be counted on to do damn well nearly everywhere; a come-back-to is like going home again. Or so it feels to me.
cONFRONTATIONS
By MICHAEL PERKINS
Photography is the simplest thing in the world, but it is incredibly complicated to make it work–Martin Parr
THOSE SHOOTERS THAT WE DUB “STREET PHOTOGRAPHERS” all share a secret; that what most of us casually regard as “reality” is nothing but the top surface on a layered cake, a topography that we drill down into, in order to reveal the profound beneath the obvious. England’s Martin Parr, who passed at the end of 2025, began his career doing straight documentary work, and gradually evolved a whimsical, even gentle mastery of street work that showed everyday people, bearing their social masks, even as it revealed the biases and beliefs that underlie them. In the hands of other photographers, his approach might have been considered rude, even intrusive, but, being British, Parr practiced, instead, a kind of lower-case “C” confrontational style.
Parr, born in 1952, first aspired to be a documentary photographer as early as age thirteen, influenced by the work of the the U.K.’s Royal Photographic Society. Laboring with hit-or-miss grades in school, he found a true home at a local polytechnical academy, joining the ranks of local reporters on any and every kind of news assignment. His first truly personal approach to photographing people came as a result of his move from a city to a rural environment, where he studied the regional rituals and habits of working-class locals in an effort to to develop an eye for the humorous reality beneath their public selves, publishing Bad Weather, the first of what would eventually total over sixty collections of images, in 1981. As he moved from journalism’s then-dominant medium of black-and-white to color, he began to frame his work at a much nearer distance (using a macro lens), creating portraits that in many cases were little wider than head shots.
The range of hues and contrasts in his color shots became even more startlingly invasive as well, as he usually employed a full flash or flash ring at very close quarters. The results were revealing, if seldom flattering. “The fundamental thing I’m exploring, constantly, is the difference between the mythology of the place and the reality of it. Remember, I make serious photographs disguised as entertainment. That’s part of my mantra. I make the pictures acceptable to find the audience, but, deep down, there is actually a lot going on that’s not sharply written in your face. If you want to read it you can read it.”
Parr’s pictures were technically of the faces that his subjects presented to the world, that is, the way they believed they were best seen. His genius lay in recording that curated version of “the truth” while showing the persons beneath the mask, not in a predatory or mean sense, like a Diane Arbus might work, but in a kind of knowing smirk, as if to say, “aren’t we all very silly, after all?”.
Martin Parr’s influence extended to his stints as a lecturer, a documentarian for television, and a university professor, with his images evolving from studies of consumerism and the rising British middle class, as well as studies of global tourism and a half dozen other projects, all done with the effect of stripping away society’s outer veneer to provide a glimpse of the actual motivations that lurked below. “Unless it hurts, unless there’s some vulnerability there, I don’t think you’re going to get good photographs”, he once remarked, adding, “I see things going on before my eyes, and I photograph them as they are, without trying to change them.I don’t warn people beforehand. That’s why I’m a chronicler. I speak about us, and I speak about myself.”
Fotofatigue
BY MICHAEL PERKINS
IN ENGAGING REAMS OF PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGES AT A SINGLE SITTING, the human eye can react like any other over-used muscle in the body. It grows weary, numbed by the sheer volume of information that is often viewed like a shuffling deck of cards rather than absorbed at a leisurely pace. It’s almost as if, having taken these trillions of pictures, we have to pay visual lip service to them by at least trying to view them all. But that method merely wears the mind down, resulting in what I call fotofatigue. We all know, logically, that less actually can be more, but when it comes to looking at images, we act counterintuitively, flooding and dulling our ability to perceive anything deeply.
One thing that can worsen this problem is for us to, like the guitarist in This Is Spinal Tap, crank everything….every effect, every technique, every everything, up to 11. I’m all for taking one’s vision or gear to the limit, just not all the bloody time. Take a specialized lens like a fisheye, which is so ultra-wide that it can render everything it sees in a rigidly circumscribed bubble of deliberate distortion. It is designed for a specific effect, but, like any other specialized look it should not be used in every shooting situation. What starts out as a novelty becomes, in repetition, a “signature” look, and then a crutch.
The shot shown here, shot with an 11mm fisheye renders plenty of realistic detail and depth of field but does not careen fully into circular-for-circular’s sake. It uses some of the flexibility inherent in the lens, but stops well short of turning the garden into the cover art for a psychedelic rock band from 1967. Shredding away on our artistic guitars at 11 is exhilarating, but I believe that the best photographs benefit from at least some degree of restraint, choosing to engage the eye for a more contemplative view rather than merely stab it with the sharp stick of shock. Photographs that merely hit at the speed of ZAP! POW! eventually wear out the viewer, and are easily dismissed and forgotten. Mona Lisa’s smile, small and slight, need not be stretched to engulf the entire lower half of her face just to grab our attention. Her mystery comes as much from what is concealed as what is revealed. Good images should always strive for that.
THIS IS DELICIOUS: WHAT’S IN IT?
By MICHAEL PERKINS
THERE ARE IMAGES THAT POSSESS AN UNDENIABLE TIMELESSNESS, as if, in looking at that particular photograph, you are simultaneously looking at every photograph ever taken, as if the creator has tapped into something unbound by time, a picture that could have been made by anyone, anywhere, anytime. Of course, as artists, we aspire to capture something, shall we say, eternal, even though we work very much in the moment. Those lucky incidents (miracles?) cast a spell upon the viewer, a delicate skein of magic which can only be ruptured by running our mouths.
In today’s technical milieu, in which we can make anything look like anything, from any time, in any style, we are becoming addicted to over-explaining how we got to the finish line. We caption. We asterisk. We jawbone endlessly about our techniques; why we chose them, what the wondrous recipe contains and how you can apply it to your own pictures. How ordinary. How soul-less. Are we artists or cookbook collectors? Hints at how to achieve this film emulation or that vintage look are, I suppose, a source of study for some. But images need to image. The power or impact of a photo needs, finally, to stand on its own. There may be some fascination in how various effects were achieved, but in the end, in a visual medium, that data load is just not that important.
It’s now so long since I made this picture that I would have to deliberately research my data to remind me how I did it. But I won’t be doing that. I don’t need to know what road I traveled to get here. I got here. There is nothing that pulling up all that information can tell me about whether the photo works. Of course, at the time, I had to be supremely concerned with what ingredients made up the soup. But harping on about it now, merely to act as a soft brag about my talents, is just creating more noise in a world that’s awash in it. There is a reason why magicians don’t explain how the rabbit got into the top hat. Let’s incline ourselves, in making images, toward wonder rather than technical blather.
SIDE HUSTLE
By MICHAEL PERKINS
SHOULD I OUT-LIVE MY WIFE (don’t even want to go there, mentally), I have toyed with the idea of changing her epitaph to read, “DON’T TAKE MY PICTURE!”, as it is already miles ahead of any other utterance in terms of her signature phrases. I married a woman whose attitude toward being captured by a camera is on par with every other female in my family. I don’t know if this is down to false modesty (the real message being “PLEASE take my picture”?) or a raging epidemic of insecurity complexes. Bottom line; to catch Marian, I almost always need to catch her unawares.
Jacy At The Rexall, 2026
A recent Saturday afternoon catnap seemed just the vehicle. No posing, no prep, no re-takes, just, boom, this is what she looks like, and I’ll hear no backtalk, thank you. I managed several frames, and was content that I would be the only purveyor of the results, as is many times the case. But the angle and sprawl of her long legs (best in the business) on the living room couch seemed to suggest something very different for the fate of the picture.
With her upper torso completely cropped out and the rest of her upended vertically, her legs and bare feet seemed to suggest something far more sensuous. Here was a woman relaxed in her skin, casual about her appeal, confident in her power to disrupt and attract attention. Thus, “Standing Marian”, in my mind’s eye, now recalled the easy allure of the character of Jacy Farrow, the small-town boy-torturer portrayed by Cybill Shepherd in The Last Picture Show. I could see her standing near the local drug store’s romance magazine, sipping on a bottle of Orange Nehi, all while the local lounge lizards hoped she would glance their way. Just once.
Often the initial purpose we envision for a picture turns out to be just a first draft. There seems to be an assertive energy about some images, such that they will themselves into their final form. If we listen well, we often reap surprises, in that the photo makes us look smarter than we really are. Creatively, it gives you a leg up.
Sorry.
FRACTURED FEATURES
By MICHAEL PERKINS
A CAMERA’S RECORDING OF LIGHT FORMS PERHAPS THE MOST CRUCIAL ASPECT of a photographic exposure. The quality, intensity and quantity of illumination quite literally separates the men from the boys when it comes to results. Whatever manipulation the photographer wants to add either before or after the shutter snap (strategies which can totally re-shape an original image), any plan has to be based, first, on how your gear renders color, whether you decide to independently monkey with it or not. You have to be able to first count on what the camera initially sees.
You’ve no doubt compiled your own list of subjects or situations where the available light is, well, untrustworthy if you will, times when you have to take very strict control to obtain what you want. For me, the top of such a list has always been the space within museums, where objects, passages, public spaces and exhibits are subject to what I call color poisoning, caused by tinted glass, reflections, extreme contrast, uncontrolled contamination from competing light sources and more. It’s a mess, and a real working knowledge of how your camera meters and register light in a given place is absolutely essential. Your intentions for pictures of an exhibit or object will often be at odds with the curatorial staff’s, who have their own ideas for what makes a collection look “good”, rather than your needs.
In the case of the images in this article, I have, sadly, admitted defeat, in that they were both intended as color pictures but have been converted to monochrome. This, after many long sessions in which I tried, and failed, to come up with a color registration that I could call honest, given the lighting scheme used in their respective display areas. They may, in fact, actually work a little better in b&w, but that’s not really the point. Thing is, I have had to settle for what you see here, or at least return both shots to the lab for another pass in the future. At the very least, I need to learn more about how to counter the light that’s available to me in a wider variety of situations. I know, duh, but it’s both enlightening and humbling to get frequent, if painful, reminders about specifically what you’re up against, technique-wise.
HARD LEFT, HARD RIGHT
By MICHAEL PERKINS
THERE ARE YEARS WHEN ONE’S PHOTOGRAPHIC WORK displays an obvious path, a palpable pattern of interest that informs most of his/her output. A year of landscapes: a year of macro studies: a year of intimate portraits; and so forth, making it easy to refer to a set twelve-month period as “my beach year” or “my pensive period”, etc.
Looking back at 2025 (which, for those who read this in the future, ends today), I seem to have been all over the place. The closest thing I can see to a clearly defined theme might be my exploration of exposure extremes, a whole bunch of experiments with both boosted and minimal lighting that seem to be largely of the “I wonder what happens when I do this” school of thought. Not career-defining, I admit, but throughout ’26 I seem to have tried frame after frame of exposures that are wildly left or right of the average. The idea, as in any departure from one’s comfort zone, is to maintain some degree of control, as well as having the choice of high or low key justify itself in the resulting image. And, of course, being me, I will, on occasion, also try something counter-intuitive.
For example, a beach is usually a place where you’re looking to shed light, since there is such a torrent of it most of the time. Instinct says to stop down the aperture, quicken the shutter speed, etc. However, I can’t help wondering if I can create a painterly or minimalist effect by going the other way and flooding the frame with surplus light. Counter that with the image I took inside a dark tomb of a theatre during a youth concert. Shooting from over 400 feet away with my particular zoom, I couldn’t open any wider than f/6.3, but I certainly could have created a so-called “normal” exposure simply by cranking the ISO to around 6400, albeit with a little noise. Instead, I dialed in ISO 3200, giving the camera the bare minimum of light needed to make the shot. What was I looking for? A warmer, more intimate aspect? Who knows? The search, the uncertainty, was the objective, even more than the final picture. Again, some photos need to be about what happens when I do this?
If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten. Simple, really, and yet we will, against our best interests, bake in habits and rely on their predictability. This year, at least with available light, I decided to spend a bit more time rolling the dice. What I do with what I learned….well, that’s another year.
OF SECOND THOUGHTS AND POSTSCRIPTS
By MICHAEL PERKINS
I WOULD LOVE TO BE ONE THE FEW MIRACULOUSLY GIFTED PHOTOGRAPHERS who can perfectly and consistently frame and expose an image S.O.O.C. (straight out of the camera). But I am not one of those people. I do my best to come as close to that ideal as possible, pre-planning shots and executing them as near to that vision as I can. I produce a great many usable pictures, first drafts if you will, to which I then apply the absolute minimum of monkeying after the fact. But, nearly always, my best pictures are collabs between what I shot and what I later discovered would best augment those shots. Thus the Holy Grail of S.O.O.C., a near religion for many, raises a lot of issues for me.
It doesn’t take long before the hope that one can shoot a picture that is so complete, so fully realized in its original conception, becomes the primary reason for making or judging a picture. This, to me, equates to a kid coloring perfectly within the lines, obeying all the rules about how to apply the right amount of crayon here or there. A certain sterility can set in, where the main object is merely to be able to boast that what you see is virginal, untouched by even well-intentioned human hands. That, in turn, can lead to mediocrity, or worse for a photographer, inflexibility.
What one person might call a manipulation, i.e., an offense against purity, is, to others, merely the second or third phase of taking a generally usable photo and helping it become great…..in perfecting the composition, in boosting the dramatic power of something that was essentially delivered, but understated, in the original. The S.O.O.C. shot you see up top here is, for a quick snap, very close to what I saw in my mind’s eye. However, the simple crop shown above gives the surging surf above the boy more immediacy, tweaking up the tension between him and the sea. I also committed the additional desecration of amping the ocean’s blueness and the contrast in the boy’s reflection. Did I rescue the picture, or ruin it? And, bear in mind that I’ve described very fundamental interventions, even though all of them are enough to scandalize the S.O.O.C. crowd. Well, tough…..
Photography is a living thing, and hopefully our best results will also seem alive. But just as painters re-do entire sections of a canvas from a sunset to a profile on their way to a final masterpiece, shooters must be free to use a second (or third) pass on an image, rather than relying on the snap of the shutter to reliably deliver miracles on demand. A two-putt is not as spectacular as a hole-in-one, but it still looks pretty damned good on a scorecard.
MY MAINTENANCE YEAR
By MICHAEL PERKINS
NOT ALL PROGRESS IS MEASURED MERELY IN FORWARD MOTION. The phrase “look how far we’ve come” is regularly used to indicated growth, when, in photography, as in many other ventures, the sentence “look how wide/deep we’ve expanded” may be just as important. Thus, at the close of a year such as the one I’ve just survived, my work with images isn’t best seen as a series of break-throughs or epiphanies as an attempt to refine or improve the existing areas of my knowledge that could use a good buffing-up.
The Skirball Cultural Center’s salute to the American Immigration experience, Los Angeles, 2025.
I came to this conclusion after reviewing the calendar year and finding few, if any, miraculously fresh things in the “done” basket, just more detailed ways of delivering the ideas I’ve already explored over many years. Part of this was my own compromised health, which, though temporary, definitely kept me in Emily Dickinson mode, confined to the house and dreaming of the picture opportunities left untouched just outside my window (Emily was a real whiz with a Rollieflex, as I recall). There were too many days I just couldn’t be “out among ’em”, which led me to work, instead, on a deeper dive into things I could work on without a lot of travel.
This led me to a couple of productive areas, including tackling the unexpectedly steep learning curve for a new lens (it takes a lot of work to make things appear effortless, ha), giving me time to enhance my approach to low-light situations (including new uses for Auto-ISO in my wildlife work), and to renew my continuing love affair with 50mm primes. During the times that I was more completely mobile, I found myself searching for visible measures of patriotism, from small marches to grand museum exhibits (see above). In the current season, it seemed only natural to turn my camera toward one of the most convulsive societal upheavals in my seventy-plus years on the planet, and, when I was more regularly out-of-doors, I made a special effort to capture that tension in-camera. As I said, this was a year of sinking deeper taproots into things I needed to improve rather than boldly going where no one has gone before, and I am trying to tell myself that that, too, is of value. Or so I hope.
CLICKING WITH THE LADIES
By MICHAEL PERKINS
By MICHAEL PERKINS
NO ONE ALIVE TODAY CAN RECALL A WORLD in which a camera of some kind was not considered an essential personal accessory, especially after the recent iPhone revolution has absolutely completed the “democratization” of photography. That concept, the idea that everyone should own a camera and take it everywhere, was, at one time, a novel idea, a behavior that had to be taught. And, as in so many cases with early amateur photography, the teacher for that habit was the Eastman Kodak Company.
Having already made cameras cheap and simple to operate by the end of the 19th century, the company next tackled the task of making people want to use them, and use them all the time. Kodak was certainly a “hardware” company, in that they made a wide line of cameras, but their bread and butter was as a “software” company, as it was the sale of Kodak film that created its biggest profit. And so, having provided the means for taking a lot of pictures, they turned to engineering the desire to do so, especially as regarded female consumers, where they saw their biggest potential growth.
Enter the Kodak Girl.
Young, adventurous, jaunty, and constantly pictured with a Kodak at the ready, The Kodak Girl was first featured in prominent women’s magazines in the late 1800’s, ready to preserve key moments at parks, the beach, and the mountains, as well as capturing key moments around the home. She was shown in a variety of poses and styles so as to appeal to both the stay-at-home mother and the active seeker, but her greatest role was as The Closer, a character with which consumers could easily identify, sparking their own decisions to buy their first personal camera and make its constant use a regular activity. Kodak kept evolving the Girl’s physical look as the 20th-century saw women gain in spending power as well as personal empowerment, modeling some ads in the ’20’s after silent screen actress Edith Johnson. Decades later, they would refresh the old campaign yet again, dubbing a young bathing beauty named Cybil Shepherd as a Kodak Girl for the age of Aquarius.
Thus, Kodak pioneered the idea of putting a camera in everyone’s hand a century before Steve Jobs added his own variation to the campaign, his iPhone removing the last real barrier to universal camera use. Introducing a truly useful thing into the world is a great talent, but the ability to convince people they need something they’ve never even thought to wish for is an equally remarkable skill.
THE JOLLY’S IN THE DETAILS
By MICHAEL PERKINS
AS A FIRST-TIME READER OF A CHRISTMAS CAROL (I believe I was eleven), I recall being deeply touched by Charles Dickens’ poignant description of Mrs. Bob Cratchit, busying herself with the preparation of the poor family’s meager holiday feast, and doing her best to maintain simple dignity with re-sewn clothing and modest adornments, or as he put it:
“dressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence.”
The passage shaped me, with the idea that, in contrast to the grand shop windows, the magnificent parades and the brightly blazing light displays, most people have what the popular song refer to as a “Merry Little Christmas”, an observance measured not by the yard, but, like Mrs. Cratchit’s ribbons, by the inch. Many of us live with holidays that are simple, stretched thin, re-used, brave. This feeling informed my view about a year after reading Carol, as I pointed my first primitive camera at seasonal celebrations in my little neighborhood. Always, it was the small signs, the homemade cheer, the quiet grace notes of people’s celebrations that interested me most. To this day, a house swallowed in 40,000 blazing watts of flying reindeers and dancing snowmen is far less appealing to me than a single candle mounted in a window that looks like it seldom houses anything like joy.
Even the song Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas itself, introduced in WWII’s days of separation and longing, is not really about celebration; it’s about making it through, about believing that the very next Christmas will be the one that pays off for all of us, if we’re patient. To this day, I love making pictures out of people’s make-do holidays. The small stuff counts for even more when you gain the perspective of a long life. What to hope for? Certainly not just “more of” or “bigger than”, but, instead, a wish that, like Mrs. C., even if all we have to mark the glad occasion are new six-pence ribbons, we can at least appear brave in them.
SLOW THE F(stop) DOWN
By MICHAEL PERKINS
EVER SINCE PHOTOGRAPHY SPLIT INTO TWO VERY DISTINCT CAMPS, the pro-digital and the pro-film, I have been constantly evaluating the claims and, indeed, the motivations of both factions. At one time, I must admit that, even though I myself was weaned on film, the analog-forever crowd struck me as a little superior, as if the choice of that medium alone put their work on a higher plane. And, of course, the digital gang could also be guilty of being dismissive of any tech before 2,000 as retrograde and primitive. Both sides had their extremely loud champions, and both were guilty of short-sided priggishness as regarded the other.
Only one way to get this shot under these conditions, and that’s to slow down for a :30 exposure.
Over time, as predominantly digital as I am, I have grown fond of many of the the film folks’ return to nearly all-manual calculation of their shots. In short, in a digital world, where immediate gratification and a blizzard of volume define many people’s shooting regimens, the filmies have very purposefully opted for shooting in a manner that demands that they slow the f down. The deliberation required to shoot film forces the discipline of patience upon the shooter, retarding his pace to the point where certain qualitative questions become, as they were in the analog era, clearly visible. For example, in a medium where you are working with a limited number of opportunities (exposures), you can easily find yourself asking, Do I need this picture? and the corollary Is this the time/are these the conditions for taking it? In a world of restricted choices and the slower pace required to execute a shot precisely, it’s not unreasonable to feel a greater sense of intentionality, which is required for compelling images in any medium.
Of course, you can impose this discipline on yourself in a digital medium, although it takes much more concentration and practice to learn/unlearn all the habits associated with quick results. Slowing down to the point where you can clearly see where the spaces between the points of a technique lie, and how they link to each other for a good result, adds to one’s understanding, creating a more distinct difference between decision and habit, or craft and art. Speed is indeed seductive, but, as in many other aspects of life, it’s a short cut, and, as we all know, some short cuts lead to blind alleys.
THE LAND OF NO EXCUSES
By MICHAEL PERKINS
THE TIME IS FAST APPROACHING where most of the photographers in the world will have no personal memory of just how much technical skill once needed to be applied just to obtain a usable photograph. We are already a full generation removed from a world in which film had to be purchased, loaded, exposed, unloaded and processed before the results could be viewed. Also gone for most people is the careful budgeting of shots that had to be plotted so that snaps of a vacation could be captured within the span of 24 or 36 exposures, rather than the endless barrage of shots made typical in the digital age. And beyond all that lies an additional plethora of calculations, tools, aides, and attachments once enlisted in the great effort expended in making pictures look, well, effortless. These all speak not to the art but to the craft of photography, and, as they fade away for good, all we are left with is endless possibilities and greatly increased responsibility. Simply put, there is almost no excuse for making a bad image.
The little wonder you see here was produced by Eastman Kodak Company for generations, and was always tucked into my father’s shirt pocket for quick consultation before triggering the shutter. For shooters of his generation, taking a shot meant first solving a math problem. Composition and inspiration came in second or third after just being able to hack the science of it all. Many cameras had basic instructions for use or loading inscribed inside their covers, and every roll of film was accompanied by a flier on how to correctly expose that particular emulsion. The aforementioned Kodak also kept HOW TO MAKE GOOD PICTURES, its basic primer on photo techniques, in print for nearly sixty years. And then you also factor in the efforts of the true purists, those who chose to process their own film. The point is, the apparatus involved in being able to take the uncertainty out of photography is largely gone, with more responsive “serious” cameras and mobiles virtually guaranteeing a workable result every single time.
So why are there still so many awful, bland, uninteresting, insanely misconceived photos? Well, it could be because there is still a real limit to what cameras can do. Granted, they are better than ever at anticipating what we need in a given situation and trying to supply it. They are also incredible at protecting us against our own limited skills. But they cannot think. Or feel. Or, to be very hippy-dippy, dream. The best photographers are, in fact, dreamers, and it was not so long ago that our dreams were thwarted, or at least compromised, by our need to “master” the camera, to tame it as one might a wild stallion. Now, we no longer have to fight our gear to a draw. The craft aspect is largely gone. The art part remains. And that’s on us.
thenormaleye 